Vacancy
by Suzie-May Carter
Summary: Lexi and Silas have been vampires for the last 80 or so years. They've been beside each other since before they can remember and will do anything, at any length for the other, but this had to start somewhere. Before their devotion to one another, they had to discover for themselves how to be Lexi and Silas. (Not really fanfiction, just using the names & similar types of vampires)
1. Chapter 1: Preface

A/N: It's rather dramatic but the story does get better

Chapter 1 : 1949 

She was expecting this, something eventually had to happen and it had to be her. She wasn't an elderly woman but she wasn't a teenager either. It was that sort of in-between age where crazy things could go on in life and this might have been one of them.

In that current moment she was thinking about how the situation at hand had turned into a nightmare, that this wasn't the way to go but it had to anyway.

Distantly she could hear shouts of a deep baritone voice. She didn't want him to find her yet, it was much too early for that but from her restrictions it wasn't like she was going to run off, actually she couldn't even move her hands, just wiggle frantically.

After the drugs had worn off she begun to take in her surroundings, an empty house in central Cardiff, her hands tied behind her back. The deep purple silk around her neck was the next thing she noticed, along with the fact that she seemed to be standing on a strong metallic stool. Then, on the maroon sofa, a man, dressed in all black apart from the military style jacket, seated casually with a duffle bag filled with the parts for a sniper gun. The man slid out a box and took out a cigar, flicked on a lighter and took a long drag.

"I'm glad you're awake, it's going to be so much more fun like this," he said, a weak welsh accent and an undercover strong Irish brew. "You know, your partner-in-crime is about to come exploding in here, in such a fearsome terror. He'll be arriving in, oh, 9 minutes. And you'll certainly want to put a show on for him, one he can't save you from. Something painful and slow, but first.."

She had been keeping silent until he leapt up, she let out a small yelp making her wobble on the stool.

"Oh, no, dear, mustn't die yet, I've got to give you something."

Grinning he pulled forward another of the silver stools and jumped up on it so that he was towering over her slightly. She tried to pull away but his left hand gripped the back of her head, his right wrist went to his mouth where her bit down quickly and forced it onto hers.

"There, there, now. Drink up you're going to need it," he sang, "Oopsies, almost forgot, I'm Nathaniel, call me Nate if you like."

He finally pulled away and with the utmost elegance and got back to the floor. She was still spluttering as she gasped out, "Why did you do that to me? I I don't-"

"Yes, well, it had to be done, don't worry. But now, I've got to do this!" With sudden movements he slammed back the stool with a powerful kick and she dropped almost 4 inches, dangling harshly from the ceiling. The purple of the silk choking her, definitely not suiting her bluey-green mermaid hair and reddening face.

Nate gave one last announcement before leaving, "Like I said, darling, don't worry, lover-boy'll be here in a few mo's. Ciao, Leila," Finally with an actual swoosh, he left grandly.

She didn't have long and her vision had begun to get spotty. This was it and there was nothing she could do but she knew who was coming. Leila didn't want him to see her dying, dead maybe but on her way to actually being dead was different; he would try to save her.

The door was in splinters within moments and suddenly he was in the room staring at her horrified at the scene.

"HELP ME GET HER DOWN."

One of his men beside him rushed forward to an abandoned stool while he brought out his switchblade and clambered onto the stool, slashing at the fabric.

'It's too late, I'm so sorry. There's nothing you can do,' she thought, 'I'm sorry, my love.'

Her eyes were drooping and one of her last glimpses was the face of the man she adored so much. I'm sorry, my love. His arms curled her closer to him as he took what he thought would be their last embrace, he closed his lips around her bloodied ones, sealing her last few moments with a kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

1 Week Later

"Maybe she s a werewolf and she ll wake up when it s the full moon? Lycanthropy is very popular practice in the old country types," Silas looked to his friends and second in command exasperatedly and warily.

Silas said, "No, that is not going to happen."

"Look, man, her bruises healed like within minutes and she is definitely breathing but what hasn't happened it her waking, so werewolf?" Tony said while leaning back into the chair. He was trying to lighten the mood but it wasn't working very well.

Silas and his team were currently at headquarters, in an underground base in a large house on the outskirts of London where his beloved was in the room next door on a bed with the radio playing a jazzy song on her favourite station. There was a clear glass vase on the bedside table with her favourite flowers: peonies. There was no obvious explanation to why she hadn t woken up yet as Silas had a doctor come into their secret base to oversee her condition but all the doctor could tell was her eyes were a shocking shade of purple and that she was simply sleeping.

One whole week later since the incident and Lexi was still resting peacefully with no sign of waking. Meanwhile, Silas was panicking and worrying to no end but still running his secret organisation with his close friend and their progenies.

Their organisation consisted of basically vigilante acts and Robin Hood type of work while still getting by on regular jobs and means of living. Hiding from the local police was alarmingly easy and even when the police know entirely about what happens in the dark alleyways of the streets of London, they don t do a thing. In which those lazy and cruel acts from useless law enforcement and the suffering of the poor, even after the war that had wrecked havoc throughout the lives of the many, it had lead to the creation of , Silas and Lexi's group for doing the work they can to help. The began with the couple s blissful 3 year anniversary as a couple. They weren t married on paper but anyone being around them (usually Tony or Lexi's best friend, Jenny) couldn't tell the difference as after 3 years they are still just as in love as ever.

So, dearest reader, you can see why Silas is so distraught over his Lexi's coma that he sees no end to, and the pain he is going through.

Another week passes and Silas only becomes more agitated as Lexi hadn't woken from her sleep yet. However, this is the day she does and the day hell freezes over, the day a snowball finally has a chance in the inferno that is hell. They were on the second level of the house when it happened.

It was 5 am and Lexi s eyes flashed open.

SILAS!

He had trouble sleeping without her in his arms but he managed to sleep for a few hours and now he bolted upright because he knows that voice. It follows him everywhere and in this case he was sure that it was from her.

"Silas! Silas!" She sprung out of the bed and was at the door faster that possible and at the same time her beloved leapt up off the sofa just on the other side of the room and grabbed the handle. He twisted, pulled it towards him to reveal a bright-eyed and scared Lexi. He froze for half a second before her arms were around his neck and their bodies pressed together. His own arms made his way to her hair as they embraced.

"Lexi, he choked out, my love." She hmmm d in response and squeezed tighter. "Love, that's a bit too much," he said as he felt himself become light-headed and breathless.

"Oh!" She drew back slightly and gave him a sheepish look before drawing him to her again.

Finally withdrawing from the hug she looked a little confused and worried, "Silas. What happened? Last I remember I was being hanged by Nate and then I saw you and Tony and the others come for me. Then it was just really dark," she put a palm to his face, which he leaned in to, but I could still hear you, I m sorry you had to see me like that.

He looked appalled, "What? No! None of that was your fault, it was that man s and his group of bastards that did that to you? Wait, what did he do to you? Don't answer if you're not ready or don't want to. No, darling, it's fine," Lexi lead them to the sofa against the wall he was just napping on and then went onto explaining the events of her almost death- was it death though? Or situation ? She wasn't sure but gave a description as best she could.

Silas was horrified, then murderous by the end. He jumped up from her arms and then cried, I need to get Tony and they guys, we have to hunt down this son of a bitch and then fucking destroy him!

He was making to Tony's room but in less that a second Lexi was by his side holding onto his arm yanking him to face her. Silas, no! Think this through, are you really going to wake Tony and make him angry at you? And how are you going to even find that man without any plan whatsoever? See why you can t rush off like this? She calmed him for a moment before leading him back to the room she was sleeping in.

"Come on, let's go to sleep and then we can find and take down Nate, okay?" They were inside her room now and he nodded at her, simply glad to have her back and seemingly healthy, climbing into bed Silas fell asleep quickly, glad to have Lexi in his arms once again. Lexi, however, thought that she had had enough rest for a while and was content being with him until the sun rose. She focused on his even breathing and the calming pace of his heart, she marvelled at the feeling of their bond. Even after 3 years they still were as close as ever and not many people had anything like they did, it was rare connection that after three years it was the type that was meant to last a lifetime, lifetimes even.

Eventually dawn crept up on the pair but she waited another hour to wake him, knowing he didn't often sleep very well, especially without her presence. She gently shook his shoulder and called his name. He smiled lightly with his eyes still closed and tightened his arms around her, she leaned up and kissed both his eyelids and then carefully let herself out of bed tugging on his hands, "Come on, we have to wake up. I ll make breakfast and you can wake the others, remember, Tony is last or he ll be grouchy all day."

"Fine, I m coming," he grouses. The both of them get dressed and get ready for the day before doing their respective activities. She made a start of breakfast, it would take some time as some of the other guys usually helped with food but they were much like Tony, never wanting to leave bed, meaning it would be a while yet. She didn t have to listen very hard to hear the complaints of the others and their whinging (very few of them were morning people) but then she heard Silas yell something and a few crashes down the stairs prior to almost all of them bursting through the heavy door.

"Lexi!" Tony shouted, giving her a big hug, "You're awake! When did this happen? Are you okay? Why wasn't I told?!"

She grinned and said, "Early morning and we didn't want to wake you."

"Aww, Lex, you should have let me sleep but I m glad you're returned to this ass here, he's been sooo mopey without you, thought I was going to have to send him off to the gentleman's club if you know what I mean, just to cheer him up a bit, not that he d go, darlin', man's too in love to even consider it."

"Hah. Right, Tony," Silas said next to Lexi, "Move along, lets leave Lexi and the other to the cooking while we get ready for the day."

Everyone expressed their happiness to Lexi's well being and then did what they were supposed to.

"Okay, people. Let's get going, we've got 14 mouths to feed including ours, so move your arses and make some smashing food for the day," Lexi said, her fellow cooks, Mallory and Tom, chuckled and got started.

Half an hour later they had finished breakfast and Lexi asked Tom to call everyone to the kitchen.

They had just finished before Lexi asked Silas, "So, what are we doing today?"

"Just work and then training and after that we have a murderer to catch," he replied, eyes full of mirth, then turned to the group and said, When you re done, go to your day jobs and when you get back get changed and meet us in the gym.

Their gym, part of the underground base, wasn't much but it had the equipment that everyone needed for their own individual needs, lots were basic exercises found in any old gym such as punching bags but most if not all of the team had thorough training in martial arts, learnt from a close friend that was at that moment was in the Amazon rain forest observing the plants and animals.

Silas turned to Lexi and said, "I'm going to go to the garage for the morning, see you later," he pressed a kiss to her cheek and made his way to the door.

Silas garage was one of the only two in the area, that meant they were always busy and there was always noticeable profit coming in.

Lexi worked at the telephone company, she just connected wires to wires, that meant she was the local electrician in the community.

When they weren't at their day jobs they would be training and saving their city. London, after the war wasn't doing as well as they projected to the rest of the world. It was a city that was still healing and with that it was still and open wound that could be attacked. Serial murders, bombs, illegal and harmful drugs, all these and more contributed to the suffering of the city.

However, The Cloaked Red, would fight and defend London to their last breaths. Silas and Lexi had originally just been a couple that were confronting and standing against the crime going on. Soon after they started though, Tony found out, then Jenny, it was hard to keep anything from them. Tony was the nosiest bastard they knew (affectionately). Eventually the four brought in people that were on their own and had no means to live, those that had been casted off into the streets to die. They gave them a home and a purpose, Lexi and Silas were on a crusade, but they didn't have to do it alone, the more of them there were, the less chance they had in anything going wrong during their nights out in taking down the people hurting the city.

At around 4 pm people started to return home and go downstairs. Lexi had just gotten back from work and was in her and Silas' room when he came bursting in with the local newspaper.

"Lexi, he's done it again, the killers, they've taken a man in his late 50s," he said while panting.

She took him by the wrist and lead him to the gym, "Come on, we have to tell the others, if we're going to catch them tonight then we will need all the info we can get on them."

Arriving at the gym Silas gave the newspaper to Tony who scanned it and handed it to the person closest to him.

Right, now all of you have heard of the gang of serial killers making their way around London, taking men, women and children, and recreating families out of the corpses of the people they've killed. We are going to stop them tonight, we've been through the plan enough times now

Two hours later everyone was ready to go, they had deduced the location of the gang s base and they were headed there now. The group split up and headed to their respective vehicles, they would park half a mile away from the known location before storming the abandoned warehouse. The police were to scared to go in and help them, it was down to the Cloaked Red to defeat the gang.

Lexi and Silas had their crimson masks secured on their faces as they took the back entrance that was surprisingly unguarded. Swinging open the metal door, they slipped out their knives from the thigh holsters and slit the throats of the men in front of them, too fast for the men to realise they had been infiltrated. Lexi pulled out a radio device from her pocket and whispered, "Back entrance secure." Tony was with one of the men, James, as he replied, "Copy, east side secure."

Silas made a few hand motions to the men on the other side of the warehouse, they discovered a bulk load of crates, filled with grenades, C-3 explosives and tons of RDX explosives, all mainly used in the war.

In the next ten minutes they were able to invade their way into the very heart of the building, to where the mind of the whole operation was. The whole group surrounded the room before Mason, the lock pick, opened the door to reveal a tall man, white and in his 40s standing in front of a desk, pistol in hand. That wouldn t do him much good though, almost all in the Cloaked Hood apart from Alfie who was their sniper, that had a clear shot, was aiming their guns at him.

As Silas was at the very front of the group, he was the one who ended up in a brawl with the master-mind in question. The man was the first to throw a punch which landed on Silas shoulder, even when he dodged. They were just about to engage in a vicious fight before Silas said to the others, I ve got this. Soon enough Silas got the upper hand and put the man on his back with his boot at his neck threateningly. "Who are you and why did you do this?" he said.

"I am no one. This is bigger than your petty game of chasing criminals," the man on the floor spat out blood in his mouth, he painfully turned his glare towards Lexi, "Can t you feel it? You will soon."

She looked at him and to Silas worriedly. He brought out his side arm and aimed it at the man's forehead. "What is your name?"

The man said, "The thirst for bl-"

A bullet fired out of the gun and straight into his head, ending his words. Blood splattered over the floor and dirtied Silas leg.

"Come on, let's go. It's over, he can t do anything now. James and Tyler, you two search this room, collect anything you deem useful. Tony, Mallory and Will, snake the upper levels down to me. The rest of us will search ground level. Everyone meet at the cars in 15 minutes," Silas ordered, he wrapped an arm around Lexi's shoulders and guided the team into the corridor. They all acknowledged and made agreeing sounds and set off to complete their orders.

By the time they made it home it was 2:50 am and everyone was too tired to do much but change and go to bed.

Silas and Lexi had just dropped into bed when Lexi asked, "Are you okay?"

He pulled her close and said, "Yeah, I m fine. Just a bit worked up over today. Do you know what he was going on about at the warehouse?"

"No, I don't really know what he was going on about. Let's just leave this for tomorrow, okay?" While she was talking she had a tense feeling of dread in her, "Go to sleep, beloved."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A/N: This needs severe editing so I apologize for the crap grammar and if anything doesn't make sense.

Less than 3 hours later Lexi was in the midst of a violent nightmare when Silas awoke to her thrashing and muffled cries. He took a second to absorb the situation and then drew her in to himself.

"Darling, wake up. You're having a bad dream. Lexi," he said, trying to bring her back into the world of reality.

Her violet eyes flashed open and she bared her teeth hissing and snarling. Silas shot back dumbfounded before quickly grabbing her wrists and pinned her against the bed.

"Lexi! Lexi," he said loudly. She was growling.

"Blood," she said, the only thing intelligible. Her lips peeled back, still showing all her teeth and her extended k-9s that were barely noticeable in the moonlight.

"Tony," he yelled, "Tony, get in here." She continued to writher and struggle against him, "Tony, get your ass in this room!"

A minute later a tired and sluggish Tony opened the door to reveal Silas still holding Lexi down.

"Whoa, man, if you wanted to get a group going you should have called earlier," Tony said amused.

"Shut up, Tony, look at her carefully," Lexi growled when he spoke.

Tony looked from her to SIlas, "What happened?"

"I don't know but you need to get some rope or something before my hold on her weakens. Quick, go to the closet there should be something."

Tony left and then returned promptly, his hands full of restraints. "Get her into that chair," Tony said.

Silas lifted her up and put her in the seat with some trouble. Tony began to tie her wrists and ankles to the wooden fixtures, and when he was done he stood back and look to Silas.

"Blood," she snapped out.

"What? why is she saying that?" Tony asked.

SIlas sighed and ran a hand over his face, "I don't know but she had a nightmare and.. then this happened."

"Why don't you give her what she wants," Tony said, "I'll go down to the kitchens and get some of that cow blood crap we have for cooking."

Silas watched her as she watched him. Lexi had a wild glint in her eye and she was breathing erratically. Tony got back and with a small cup of blood, "Alright, here goes nothing."

Tony, at a steady pace, brought the cup to her senses, she sniffed the air and her violet eyes darted around. The cup reached her lips and she took a cautious sip.

"Ah!" Tony said. Lexi had jerked her head to the side and her ended up nipping Tony's fore finger.

"Her teeth are sharp."

Lexi licked her lips and closed her eyes before she came to her normal self.

""Silas? What's going on?" she asked confused, she wiggled in her ties.

"Lexi, you here with us?" Silas asked.

"Y- yeah, why am I tied up?"

"You don't remember?" he made to release her from the chair and the situation.

"Just bits and pieces," she said. They both got her out of the tie and then helped her to rest on the bed. She pulled the covers over her shoulder and said, "I remember this really strong craving for blood but that's about it."

"Yep, I got my finger a bit too close and then you kinda bit down and got blood in you mouth," Tony said matter-of-factly.

She looked sheepish, "I- uh, I remember that part."

"Okay, why don't you get some more sleep and we can talk more about this when you wake up," SIlas said and then leaned down to her to press a kiss to her forehead. He sat down on the bed and pulled her into his arms. Tony left quietly, off to tell the others that the night activities would be cancelled and to only go to their day jobs.

Lexi had just been through something exhausting and something that she didn't understand, so she fell asleep almost immediately, in Silas' comforting hold.

A few hours later Silas awoke and at this point it was late morning. He slid out of bed and tucked the covers over his beloved's shoulders. He slipped out of the room and went to check on the other members of the household. Will and Mallory were in the gym, boxing, so were Tyler and James but they were running laps. Silas left them to their activities and went to look for Tony and Jenny. Finally he found them in the kitchen with tea and coffee going through a small pile of the most recent tabloids .

"Hey, Silas, how's Lexi?" Jenny asked.

"Yeah, I filled her in on the situation, figured you wouldn't mind," Tony said.

Silas nodded and said, "No, it's fine. We'll have to tell the others eventually anyway, I just want to know what's actually happening to her first. You two have any ideas?"

"Well, we do, but it's a little out of wack. How about: Lexi is a blood-sucking monster and she wants to murder us all," Jenny suggested, "Me and Tony _both_ came up with that."

Tony agreed, "Yeah, she's a vampire. You've read Dracula by that Stoker man, how he came from that country in Europe and then the English land of Whitby."

SIlas gave him a look that said 'Are you that stupid?' - "No, Tony. Lexi is not a vampire. You really have to put down those ridiculous books of yours."

"Books of mine? Lexi reads just as much as me, thank you very much," Tony said, looking a bit miffed. Jenny snickered.

"So no ideas then?" Silas asked.

"Well, it's not an idea but Lexi said something to us all that I remembered, don't get me wrong, Tony is an ass but he might be right. So that when she was taken by that Nate guy," Jenny said and Silas had a hard look on his face, "She mentioned something about the guy that was there, Nate, I think his name was. That he had _bit his hand and made her drink that blood_ and if that doesn't scream psycho to you I don't know what does. Anyway, so he made her drink his blood, and then what? She was 'hanged' but her bruising healed in almost a day, and injuries like that don't just heal that quickly. So what if, instead of being just injured, what _if_ she had actually died and then became the _undead._ "

Jenny finished her speech supporting Tony's theory and took a drink of her coffee.

Silas was in denial. "No. No, really? She's not a vampire, she can't be."

Tony sighed. "Fine, if she isn't then explain this morning, what made her like that if she isn't a vampire."

Silas looked tired when he said, "Alright, if you're certain then you're the one that is going to bleed into a cup to sustain her life force and the both of you can explain to the rest of the people that live here that Lexi is a vampire intent on drinking human blood. Deal?"

Jenny and Tony glanced at each other and finally agreed.

Silas walked out of the kitchen and made his way to the master bedroom. He took a leisured pace but when he reached the bedroom he could hear loud cries of fright coming from his beloved. Pushing open the door he found Lexi in nightmares once again. And once again he attempted to wake her, and she still flashed her eyes growling. However this time, whether it was to test Jenny and Tony's theory, he held up the side of his hand to her sharper teeth and let her bite down. He flinched but he didn't pull away. Unsurprisingly she drank sloppily for a few moments until he began to draw his hand away from her. She whimpered but was much more calm than the last time something like this happened, she leaned back into the mattress and her eye lids drooped.

He left the bed and went up to the attic. The others didn't know what was up there but they weren't allowed to go up. No, he and Lexi did not have a painting that was slowly rotting away so that they could live forever in a pretty standstill, the attic was filled with memories of his family and then his and Lexi's happy bond. His life growing up in the house wasn't a very happy one or a particularly sad one, just rather lonely. It was a large house that only had 4 members of its household, they came from old money that somewhere along the line was spent gambling by his great-something-grand-aunt. She had a slight addiction that ended up getting her the status 'the black sheep'. As a child he lived with his workaholic father, who was loving enough but he just didn't have the time, his neglectant mother who just didn't know how to look after him and his father's eldest sister, whose husband had died in the first war. However, his father then died of a heart attack, his aunt, distraught left for the countryside and then died from consumption in which she had contracted from a foreigner she befriended and finally his mother, who died of alcohol poisoning after the stress her body took before and after their deaths. Silas was also sure she was having an affair with the sister of a maid the next town over but he never mentioned it due to the fear of her intoxicated wrath.

So ultimately, the house and the money was handed down to him, after paying for the funerals and wakes of his last family members he used the money to restore the house into something worth living in. Eventually he met Lexi a few years after that and all was well. That was until the current 'vampire' fiasco that he was trying to wrap his head around.

In the attic now he was looking for a the most recent photo album, the one in which contained memories of his and his love's blissful times in the short time they had been together.

This attic was full of nostalgic memories, some he treasured and some he wanted to bury them so deep there would be no escape hatch.

He took what he was looking for along with some other objects and then climbed back down the stairs. Shutting the hatch on the attic floor he vacated the attic for the first time in a few months, he never went up there often, only when he needed to. Silas was never one to live in the past but would always remember what was important in life.

Silas went to check on Lexi for one last time before heading out. He cycled to her work place to explain her absence, that she had fallen ill with a severe cold and couldn't come into work today. The women were sympathetic and offered to bring round chicken soup and some bread (to which he denied prettily) and afterwards he arrived at the garage. Even though he was very knowledgeable about cars and other vehicles such as motorcycles, he liked the option of fresh air and exercise thrown in his day (along with the training and vigilante business but the people not involved wouldn't know that, like Jack his faithful assistant mechanic),it gave him some time to think on his own, privacy was sorely needed in a house occupying 14 people and the crime fighting.

Back at the house Lexi had just woken up, two hours had passed before she got up to go to the bathroom. She put a hand on the bedside table as she tried to ease herself into a standing position. She could stand but her muscles were sore for some reason and she didn't want to get any vertigo from getting up too fast. In slow movement she made it to the bathroom, she opened the door and pulled on the light cord. The brightness stung her eyes for a moment as she adjusted to the change , she took two steps to the sink and stood in front of the mirror.

Her reflection was a small shock. Her blue-green hair was in a state of chaos, her violet eyes were wild and out of control and her complexion was pale but not ill pale, simply a shade or two lighter than before the situation and her condition. She spent a few minutes trying to calm down and tame her hair but it wasn't much use, it was still a disaster.

Lexi pulled on a thick bathrobe and left the bathroom and gingerly patted her feet on the cool floorboards, down the stairs and into the kitchen. When she reached the kitchen she found Alfie lounging casually on the window sill with a few biscuits.

"Hey, Lex, how you doing," he asked, his voice echoing slightly in the larger room, they didn't have a dining room as they had no need for one so a while ago everyone got together and knocked down the wall between them, creating a greater sized kitchen where everyone could get together and eat, mealtimes were part of the day where everyone saw each other in their cluttered schedules.

"I'm good, thank you. What are you reading?" she said as she opened the cupboard to look for something appetising.

He looked at the front of the cover and then back to her, "Just Anna Karenina, Tolstoy."

"Oh, and what do you think of it?" Lexi asked, liking the distraction.

He smiled lightly and said, "It's okay, tragedy and all that."

An agreeable silence followed with Alfie continuing to read and Lexi cutting a few slices of bread and warmed up some soup, seeking comfort food.

She finished and said her 'see you later' to Alfie and went back to the master bedroom. She was feeling better now, less weak and less tired.

She took two steps at a time to get up the first set of stairs but then as she reached the top of them she slowed down drastically.

She was hit with a wave of nausea and regret for over estimating herself. Lexi made a start on the second set but her vision blurred and her tense hold on the banister weakened. Her body swayed. She fell with a faint gasp.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A/N:This also needs editing as I am rubbish and I am just spewing as many words as I can for my NaNoWriMo entry. Thanks if you've read this far.

Happy reading.

A few minutes later she was found by James. He was on the way to the room he shared with Tyler and discovered her lying in a jumble on the landing. James jumped into action after a moment and pressed two fingers to her jugular. He sighed in relief and then called for Will, who was the closest person available and the team medic.

Will lost the lower half of his left leg in the first war but was keen to help in the second and so he was assigned to the on-site hospital, but after the wars no one wanted a disabled man in their employment when they could have a man with two legs doing the same work but better, which was when Lexi and Silas found him and then taken him in. He had prosthetics but didn't use them unless he had to.

Leaning on crutches, William came as quick as he could after spotting Lexi on the floor. James aided Will into a seating position so that he could determine Lexi's condition.

"She's fine, I think. I can't really tell since she doesn't have any obvious wound on her or any other problem but she should be okay. Looks like she should just rest more," he explained.

James nodded and they propped her against the wall with the 2 foot framed picture of Winston Churchill.

They looked at each other in worry and then Will said, "We should tell Silas."

"As quickly as possible," James agreed.

The both of them managed to get her to her bed and resting before James left hurriedly to get message to Lexi's other half. Will stayed in the chair monitoring her condition for the next ten minutes until footsteps came thundering towards the room and Will stood up.

"How is she?" Silas asked looking panicked and out of breath.

"Fine, just overworked it seems," Will reassured.

Silas sat down at the side of the bed; he gently tucked some hair out of Lexi's face. He turned his body to face James and said, "Gather everyone in the gym, I have some announcements to make."

James left and Will stood awkwardly. Silas rose and opened the door, he motioned for Will to walk pass. In silence they made their way to the gym, Silas walking at Will's pace.

Silas walked in and went to the centre of the room, Tony and Jenny realized why they all had been called down and stood on either side of Silas who gave a small nod in confirmation. The group gathered in a small semi circle around the three and waited patiently, James and Will were curious of the reasons of them all acting oddly.

"Okay, people, we have an announcement. It might not seem plausible or believable even for us, and we deal with the crazy of London but we have physical evidence and there is no other explanation," Jenny projected, "So you have probably noticed that Lexi isn't here with us right now and that she's been unwell. We are here to discuss that."

Everyone started to look anxious.

"In this very moment: she is fine. But earlier on however, she fainted and before that she was taken as you all know and something happened when sh-"

"Lexi's a vampire," Tony injected.

"Tony!" Jenny and Silas scolded. Silas had been silent and listening carefully up to this point.

"What? You were taking too long and they need to know a-sap, not to hear you drawling on for a decade," Tony said attempting to defend himself, verbally first then with his hands as Jenny reached over Silas to smack Tony hard in the arm, "And you voice is boring."

Jenny gasped indignantly, "How dare you say that to me, I'm going to break that face of yours when I crush it to pieces!"

By now the others were whispering to each other and looking incredulously at the trio in front of them.

Silas stepped in, "All right, break it up, kids. We have some explaining to do," he motioned to the small crowd. He spoke up and said, "We don't actually think she's a 'vampire' but something has happened to her to change her. I've come across something like this before a long time ago but I was reluctant to admit it before because the person it happened to didn't make it. They died very soon after these sort of symptoms started to show."

They were all quiet now, including Tony and Jenny, along with the others, they had grown sombre.

"Lexi has been having violent night terrors, same as they did. She has sharper teeth, same as they did. She has started fainting spells, same as they did. Essentially what I'm saying is that our future with her may not be a particularly long future. Unless we find out how to combat these effects. As far as I know, the other person I knew that went through this, after the early symptoms started to show lived for almost half a year. I'm not sure how long Lexi is going to live for but I hope until we are all old and happy but this might not be the case so we are going to stop fighting like children and find answers," Silas gave a pointed look at the pair next to him.

After half an hour of group discussions they all dispatched and left to do their own thing. Then Silas, Tony and Jenny were there last and they all headed up to the master bedroom. Tony and Jenny stayed for a few minutes but left after they expressed their fatigue. They bid goodnights and went back to their own rooms.

Silas got changed and then slid into bed and pulled Lexi into his arms, drained from the day's development. He gave a condensed explanation of what he told the others. She was anxious and scared but she contemplated his words and decided to sleep on it.

They were deep asleep when they began to hear shouts from the other side of the house. Lexi and Silas shot a quick look at each other before they rushed out of bed, Silas helping Lexi as there was no stopping her from doing something when she was set on doing something.

Everyone else had woken up as well and some were at the heart of the action and others were observing concerned. When the crowd saw the couple they parted to make room for them to walk past. Lexi and Silas walked towards the commotion to discover a man dark haired man dressed in black, previously carrying a range of firearms that were now a safe distance away, and he was tied to the radiator against the wall unconscious.

"What happened," Silas asked Mason who looked on the edge of hysterical.

Mason distraught as he brokenly explained what happened, "Uh, this guy, the somehow got into our room and the shot Andrew in the head. And that woke me up, I'm not sure how the got in but after that I started shouting and Ty and Will came out from their room next to our- mine. I think he didn't know I was there so we managed to knock him out and get him here. Will's already checked on Andrew, and he died instantly."

Everyone was listening intently and then Lexi stepped in and ushered Mason down to the kitchen, she turned to Silas and said, "It's okay, I'll make him a cup of tea."

Silas nodded and told most of the people gathered around to go back to their rooms if there weren't any pressing matters, he asked a few to get Andrew's body somewhere the police would find, making sure there was clear identification on him so that they could contact the house. This way the police wouldn't be on their tails, this way it would look like Andrew had been in a freak shooting and that they could eventually give him a proper burial.

Tyler said to Silas, "I think the guy was either just to scare us, and if the was here to do that then consider us scared, but he might have also been aiming for yours and Lexi's room, as Mason's and yours are mirrored. He could have made a mistake and was sent here to kill you or Lexi."

Silas mulled over that for a moment and then sent Tyler back to his room to get some more rest. Silas himself went down to the kitchen to check on Lexi and Mason.

The opened the door to find Lexi leaning against the stove with a mug and Mason was at the table, hands around some tea.

"Hey," Lexi said when Silas came in.

The busied himself with making coffee as he replied quietly, "Hey, how is he doing?"

"Not too good but he'll be fine. I think we all need something to make us happier right now, with my situation and now Andrew's murder," she said, then a little louder, "I should talk to Aurelia, I met her a few times at the post office in Bath, she's from Bucharest. Or maybe maybe Alexei, he works at that music shop in Hull, he's actually from St. Petersburg. they both know a lot about the myths and folklore about this stuff. maybe we can visit them and see if they know anything."

"Yeah, they might be able to help," Mason said looking back to them.

Silas agreed and then made plans with Lexi to see them. He and Lexi with Henry, the weapons specialist, would see to the Romanian while Jenny, Mallory and Tom would visit the Russian.

It was early morning anyway so they didn't see any point in going back to bed so the couple requested Mason to inform the people involved. They all got dressed and met one another at the front of the house.

Lexi had packed everyone some food just before heading out as it would take a while to get to their destinations. She also grabbed some shades as her eyes were now more sensitive to bright light of any kind, her night vision had improved greatly as well.

It was in the sizable drive way that there were 4 vehicles, sometimes more since there were 14 people living there coming from various backgrounds, people needed to get around and cars were the easiest and with a very knowledgeable mechanic on hand, getting them fixed wasn't a difficult task.

Silas and Lexi gave a quick report before everyone separated and went to their specific car. Silas drove a Chrysler Royal, which he thought practical whereas Mallory drove the newest model of the Ursaab, now called Saab 92 which she cherished but would then sell for a high price to buy the next craze in vehicles.

Silas drove for just over two hours before finally arriving in Bath. They went through the suburbs, (shudder, none of them liked that mundane and boring option of life) and through the outer town and then into the heart of the city. Driving for a few more minutes they then parked in front of a small house among a long row of them.

"This should be where she lives, this is the address she gave me, Queens Square," Lexi said, holding a slip of paper.

They got out of the car and walked towards the dark blue door. Lexi knocked and it opened to show a thin short woman.

"Who the hell are you lot?" the woman asked.

"Err.. We're here to see Aurelia," Lexi said.

The woman gave a shrill shout, "Aurelia!"

Another woman came half tumbling down the stairs, "Dorina, what is it?"

"These people are here to see you," Dorina said with a scowl and she walked away from the door.

Aurelia turned to face them, she recognised Lexi, "Oh, it is so good too see you again, I haven't visited you in a while, come in, all of you." Aurelia spoke in a heavy accent.

The three standing at the door came into the small hallway and followed Aurelia into another room. They got to the living room and Aurelia offered them a warm drink and then asked them to take a seat on the sofa.

"So, I'm guessing this isn't a social calling but I will treat it like one," she said, "What are you here for?"

Lexi held Silas' hand and looked to Aurelia who was in the kitchen boiling the kettle, "We just wanted to ask some questions. On the blood drinkers."

"Ah, the moroi and strigoi. They are the type of soulless and the demons of the world," she said. Aurelia then went on to explain about her version of the lore. Lexi and Aurelie chatted for an hour while Silas and Henry listened and made comments every now and again.

A few hours later they left Aurelia's home with a homemade cake and bottles of water. Silas and Henry got into the car with a smile and a wave, Lexi hugged Aurelia who said, "Come back soon, we need to talk regularly."

"We will, I'll bring some friends. You should meet Jenny and Mallory, you would love them."

"Yes, yes," Aurelia said enthusiastically, "Bring them along soon. Bye, bye now. Have a safe journey."

They all waved goodbye in the car as they made their way home. Arriving back at the house two hours later they grouped back with Mallory, Tom and Jenny. As they went into the kitchen Henry and Silas explained to the others who they met and the information that Aurelia gave. When Lexi asked Mallory what she and the other two found out from Alexei, she laughed and proceeded to tell them about their day.

"Well, at first when we met this Alexei person you were telling us about we all thought he was just going to be of some use at least, but then he started babbling on about witches and the Russian Orthodox Church. In the end we pieced together bits from the mumbo-jumbo that he laid out to us and basically he told us what we already knew and mentioned something about a woman, Lilith, you know, Adam's first wife from Christianity. The mother of all creatures, literally, all those monsters and stuff can be traced back to her apparently," Mal said, "Although he gave us books on Vlad Tepes and dhampirs. I'm not sure where that comes in but it might be useful and he told us to return the when we're done with them but I'm not going back. Hell no. One of you lot can go back to the crazy."

"That's fine, we can mail it back. No need to to travel again,we only needed this today for a face-to-face," Lexi said.

Jenny was complaining about the 3 and half hour long drive to get to Hull and then the drive back, saying how Tom was a constant horror to be stuck with in a small compact space. "Tom would not stop behaving like a child, it's like as soon as he gets in a car he turns on this childish charm. He should be besties with Tony," Jenny said at one point to Lexi.

"I am," Tom called from the other room and Lexi chuckled.

The 6 of them gathered around the kitchen table and began to brainstorm for ideas and plausible answers to Lexi's 'condition', now possible 'vampire transition'. Jenny was tasked with reading through, taking notes and marking significant sections of the books.

"What do we know that's definite then?" Henry asked.

Silas replied with, "We know that Lexi needs blood, human blood to survive as the animal blood we tested a few days ago didn't go down well, her body rejected it. But we also know that her body can digest and consume normal human food and drink. Her body still functions as it would do as normal but her eyes are just that bit more sensitive, so are her senses. They are stronger now, she has 'fangs' but I don't think she's been on a murdering spree so we can rule out the Vlad Tepes theory, but keep the book for a bit, it might contain something of a use. They dhampir one however, it seems a bit more believable, it is linked to Balkan folklore and it also link to Bulgarian and Belarusian legends. We should look into that."

"Yeah, I'll go to the town library tomorrow, they might have something on dhampirs," Tom said and then he smiled, "And I'll walk, so no one needs to whine about me as a passenger in their car."

"Yes, you do that Tommy-boy," Jenny said.

"Okay, so we have everything up to date. We can tell the rest of them tomorrow because right now I'm knackered and need my beauty sleep, so do all of you. Especially you, Mal, you look like you could do with a decent night's sleep," Lexi said, ordering them up, "All right, out you go everyone, come on," she ushered.

Lexi had her arm around Silas' waist and he had his arm around her shoulders, supporting each other as they walked behind the other four going up the stairs to their rooms to retire for the night.

In Silas' other hand he held a glass of orange juice. When the couple got to their room he said, "You need more blood, Lex. It's been a long day and you haven't had any since before yesterday." He put the juice on one of the bedside tables.

Lexi looked anxious and then said, "No, no. I shouldn't..."

"It's fine, come here," Silas sat on the bed and pulled open the second draw of the bed-side table to show a small knife. He quickly brought it out and held it over the side of his hand, the side closest to his pinkie, and made a light incision between his pinkie and the base of his hand.

Lexi watched on, wide-eyed and shocked, not moving from her spot across the room by the full length mirror. She tried to turn away but her her canines extended into fangs.

"It's okay, come over here," Silas urged. Lexi made cautious steps to the edge of the bed and sat down gently, Silas placed his hand that was now slightly pooling with blood in her arm range. She carefully gripped both her hands on his arm and lifted it towards her lips. Lexi quickly latched on and drank, Silas with his left arm smoothed her hair, a few moments later he said, "Lexi, darling, that's enough now."

She snapped her head back immediately and looked apologetic.

"See, everything's okay. Nothing went wrong. you have more restraint than I thought you would," Silas smiled encouragingly, "Now I need you to go get cleaned up and to get me a bandage from the bathroom, can you do that, sweetheart?"

Lexi mutely followed through, she bandaged his hand first and then washed her face. She was more than eager to get rid of the blood that matted her lips. While she washed up, Silas downed the contents of the glass and then joined Lexi in getting ready for bed, she seemed to have more energy than earlier but she still moved tentatively. "Let's sleep for now," he said and he pressed a kiss into her hair.

The next day Tom left for around noon to head for the library, with him he carried a decent sized messenger bag, being hopeful to find more information on the vampire/dhampir hypothesis. Meanwhile in the training room where everyone else were gathered together so that they could be filled in, however, one of them wasn't there.

Yelena was just in her room in which she shared with Mallory who she loved dearly, she was closing the door to her bedroom when a hand holding a cloth came over her mouth and nose, it knocked her out cold in seconds.

She awoke later to nausea and a headache, feeling sore all over. She quickly discovered she was tied securely to a metal chair, moving and struggling in her straps she soon found out how useless it was. Abandoning that action she looked around at her surrounding and saw that she was in an empty, hotel suite. It was decorated with flowers and pearls, pink and sky blue walls, swirly patterned furniture. You get there was a theme. Her chair was facing the fireplace and the mirror above, on her right there was a tall window that she could probably get to if the chair wasn't so heavy and on her left was the door to get out.

Sighing she berated herself for not carrying her usual gear that included blades strapped to various places on her body. One of them her wrist, so if she hadn't let her guard down so much in the past few months then she would have escaped by now, well, her capturers would have probably taken off her but she was annoyed anyway.

As far as she knew, she had been here for over two hours, according to her calculations. If the kidnappers were intent on letting her die of boredom, then they were getting off on a good start. Yelena busied herself with counting the little flowers on the sofa, she was up to 183, but then the door finally opened to reveal a man in a military jacket carrying a duffle bag, smoking a cigar.

"Dear God, what took you so long," Yelena said, "You know, I thought you'd never come. So, who are you and why have you taken me?" She had a vague idea and if she was right then there wasn't much of a chance that he would hurt her.

As she was taking the man put down his duffle and sat on one of the frilly eye-sore sofas, he took a long drag and laughed at her words.

"I like you. You're funny, much more fun than Lexi, she was such a bore," he said rolling his eyes and grinning, "The name's Nate, love, what's yours?"

Her suspicions were confirmed, "Don't call me that, I'm not telling you my name."

"Very well, I don't need to know it anyway. Just needed someone from that little crew of yours. You are doing nicely, hon." Yelena cringed.

Nate stood up and said, "No need to worry much. I'm not here to torture you for information or anything. I have a message for you to deliver."

"What," she grounded out. He was starting to get on Yelena's nerves.

"Just tell that lovely couple you live with, you know who I'm talking about, that she needs vampire blood to survive the transition, only a drop will do."

To anyone else he would have sounded vague and mad but Yelena instantly caught onto what he was saying and was itching to get ho- wait. What if he was lying? What if this was just another ploy to hurt others?

Nate sighed and said, "What I'm telling you is the truth, love. Make sure that gets to them. Oh, and I lied, I do that. This is gonna hurt like a bitch. Sorry, love."

He took two quick steps to her and punched her hard across her face.

A/N: Thanks for reading if you've read this far and I'm sorry for the mistakes here and how jumbled the writing is.


	5. Chapter 5: Nate

A/N: Sorry for mistakes, enjoy the chapter with Nate's pov in third person. More or less.

Chapter 5: Nate

Nate undid her straps but he wasn't stupid enough to leave her with the means to get away so he took complicated cuffs out of his duffle bag and secured her wrists and ankles. He lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder, and his duffle over the other. He yanked open the door and strode through, he got to the end of the corridor when one of his grunts spotted him.

"Sir, is there anything I can do?" Grunt 1 asked, his eyes on the unconscious woman.

Nate was still smiling when he said, "Just do your job and make sure we don't get any hiccups, I'd hate for you to lose your heads." Grunt 1 swallowed looking slightly bothered but nodded. So did Grunt 2 and Grunt 3.

He got to the end of the hallway and entered the elevator, humming the theme tune to 'Muffin the Mule' and tapping his foot.

He advanced through the brightly coloured lobby, flashing a charming smile at the woman at the front desk who was watching Nate come out of the lift, she cowering behind her chair as there was one of his grunts standing above her casually pointing a gun at her head.

"Time to go," Nate sang, walking through the doors at the very front, leaving the pathetic hotel.

Immediately, the grunt with the gun at the woman jumped into action and radioed to the other grunts that they were leaving.

Nate got to the car at the front where his forever loyal driver was standing at the ready.

"Francis, would it trouble you to pop open the boot, I have a girl here in need of going home," he said to his driver who did as he said.

A short drive later Nate had Francis park a few streets away and he had written a note that was attached to some string. He got out of the car motioned for the grunts in the larger car behind him to get out as well.

"You take this woman, unharmed, to that house we were talking about earlier. Clear?" Nate said as he lifted the trunk. "If she is hurt in any way at all whoever caused it will pay dearly. You," he pointed to Grunt 2, "Repeat back to me what I just said."

"No harming the woman at all, sir," Grunt 2 said.

"Yes! Good now go, I've got work to do," Nate said, "Go back to The Boat House when you're done and get me a written report on what happens by the end of today, understand?" He turned and got back into the car, "See ya soon, boys!"

He closed the door and told Francis, "To the House of Cards, Francis."

"Yes, sir," he replied and started driving.

Nate closed his eyes and dozed lightly, catching up on much needed rest. He was in safe hands with his driver, Francis would never go against him in anyway.

They arrived two hours later to an undisclosed location that only he and his trusted driver knew. Nate was woken up to Francis saying, "Boss, we're here."

Nate yawned and said, "Very good, Francis. Come inside with me, we have work to do."

Three hours later they had finished and were tired, "Come on, Francis, let's go to the diner, we need food in our bellies and I'm paying."

"Yes, sir," Francis said.

Twenty minutes later they parked on the opposite road of a popular food place and they got out of the car together and walked to the diner. There was a bell that signalled for their arrival and a waiter looked around to them.

Nate and Francis sat down at a booth across from the counter. They scanned the menus for a moment before the waiter came round.

"Good afternoon, what do you think you'll be having today?" the waiter asked. Nate eyed his name tag.

"Hi, Lorenzo. My friend here would like to get a healthy house salad with some fruit juice, to keep up the good stuff you know?" Nate ordered and the waiter nodded happily, "And I will have a strawberry milkshake and your largest portion of fries.

"Absolutely, sir. They will arrive in the next few minutes," Lorenzo nodded approvingly. The waiter walked away.

Nate looked to Francis who was staring blankly at the drinks section of the menu

"So, Franky, how is your little family doing?" he asked.

"They are doing fine, sir. Ida is in school and her mother is still working at the dry cleaners," Nate's driver said.

"Fantastic, here have a chippy," Nate said.

They finished their meal and Nate left some money on the table, they walked to the car and as soon as they got to close the door Nate said, "Wrist."

Francis was did as he was told, he twisted round and stretched out his arm obediently. Nate pushed his sleeve up and peeled off the band-aid there. He willed his fangs to appear and then sank his top canines directly into the vein, he drank half a pint before he was full. He abruptly yanked out his fangs and pulled out the the cloth in his suit jacket to wipe his lip clean. Francis, meanwhile, had gotten a bandage and wrapped it on tight.

"Thank you very much, Francis," Nate said.

"No problem, sir," he replied.

"Now go to The Boat House, I need to see how the grunts and the new recruits are coming along, I hope none of them have been a disappointment," Nate said.

On the way they made a stop at a pharmacy and then the liquor store, they were running low on medical supplies and alcohol. Most importantly, the alcohol, especially scotch, there was a severe lack of scotch and other whiskeys in the car. Because that's normal. To have a constant stream of alcohol in a car. Well, in Nate's car anyway, he shared on occasion with Francis or rare guests, so that made up for it.

When they finally got to The Boat House, they found half a dozen of the new recruits running laps around the front building. One of Nate's grunts were shouting orders at them and make them run faster and harder, eventually one of the recruits fell. He tripped and landed on the hard ground grazing his knees.

Nate gracefully got out of the car and positively slithered into the fallen recruit's path, after shooting a withering look towards the grunt supervising them, who was shouting for the recruit to get, it shutting him up instantly. The boy pulled himself up to face the boss.

"What's your name kid?" Nate asked.

"Uh, Craig, sir," the boy answered.

"Well, Craig, why don't you go and join the other little boys and girls," Nate said. Craig left and Nate motioned for Francis to follow him into the main building. Nate walked past the grunt that was with the recruits but not before smacking the grunt round the back of the head and then kept on walking. The grunt winced but didn't cry out, Francis was fighting off a grin as he followed his boss.

"Stupid idiot. Right, Francis?" Nate said shaking his head.

"Yes, sir," he said, trying to keep a straight face.

Nate looked thoughtful as he said, "I'm going to have to get a real trainer for the kids if I want them to learn anything. Those grunts are just melting their will to nothing."

"Very good, sir. Would you like me to suitable candidates?" Francis questioned, now more serious.

"yes, if you would, old sport," Nate smiled to himself, "Have a list ready by tomorrow so I can judge who would be best. Interviews start next week." Nate dismissed Francis to his office.

Nate scanned around the room looking for Grunt 1 from earlier, he spotted him at a table across the wide space.

"Ah, Grunt 1! How did the drop-off go?" Nate asked cheerfully.

"It's, uh, Baxter, sir," Grunt 1 said trying to correct his name, but Nate turned from having a breezy glint to a hard glare in seconds so Grunt 1 quickly said, "It went well, sir. No problems at all."

"Good to hear, Baxter," his boss was smiling again but Grunt 1 cringed inwardly, "Now where's that report?"

Baxter, Grunt 1, picked it up from his desk and handed it over to him in one fast motion.

"Groovy," Nate said and walked off to his own office with the file in hand. He close the door and sat down with his red pen at the ready. He sighed and began to put in capital letters and correct spellings. He supposed he should get a teacher for the grunts but that would have just been a waste of resources.

Nate put on Sinatra on his record player and had been listening to that for half an hour before there was a knock at his door.

"Come in," he said.

Francis twisted open the handle and peered in, "I've got a list ready, about 8 people."

"Already? It's been less than an hour," Nate said surprised

Francis shrugged, "The war ended and people are in need for work. I called some people up and most say they can do the interviews in two days, sir."

"Okay, good. Go confirm and then inform me when it's done, no need to knock," Nate resumed the boring paperwork.

The next day passed without many problems, Nate got to assess the recruits. He approved what he saw, they were resilient and hard workers, they would do very well in the future.

The day of the interviews finally arrived and Francis had set up them up in a rent-out office in the middle of the city that they usually used for situations like these, where they would need to meet people in a public location in case of anything going wrong. . Francis had the potential teachers for the recruits seated in the waiting room. He had one of the grunts watching on as he went to pick up Nate from The Boat House, Francis was practically Nate's second-in-command and he held his title very seriously, he was loyal to Nate beyond measure, not because of what he was but because of what nate had done for him in the past and the many years they had worked beside each other. His boss was lenient and gave him days off work whenever he needed them, usually time to spend with his daughter.

Nate arrived at the rented office around mid-day with a set of questions and a determination to not kill anyone on the spot, he wasn't having a very happy day as some of the grunts in Ireland had a major screw up he would have to deal with after the interviews.

He impatiently ran up the stairs and then through the waiting room, ignoring all the candidates, and slammed the door to the office. He sat down and poured himself a glass of water and then yelled, "Francis, send the first one in."

A candidate opened the door and walked in, Nate didn't like him at all from this first impression. He was dressed inappropriately, his too shy attitude was off-putting and he just stood there in the middle of the room in front of Nate.

"Sit down," Nate requested, not wanting to prolong the meeting. Nate questioned him for a while but soon came to the conclusion that he was completely not right for the job. The next man was much the same, too intimidated by the prospect of the occupation.

However the third man showed a bit more promise. The third man was named Blair Gilbert and he walked in through the door confidently and answered all the questions, far better than the rest.

Interviews continued until late evening and the people it came down two were Gilbert and a woman called Ida Bennet, she had served in the war as a special agent and now that the war was over, both of these candidates were suitable choices and that their records showed they would both be perfect for the job.

At the end of the day, after Nate had given and received contact information from the two who would then meet up with him and the recruits later. He was in the car when he said to Francis, "You did well today, Francis. There were a few flimsy picks on the list but I've been able to sort through them."

"Thank you, sir," he replied.

"Yes, now head back to The Boat House. I need to see if the grunts have had any mistakes for the novice tasks I left. I'm too tired to deal with them," Nate said, eager to get to bed for some sleep.

Soon they arrived and Nate discovered the recruits safe and sound in their rooms, he liked to check on them himself. The kids were ranging between their late teens and mid-twenties, they were in need of discipline and a home which he provided. He was good to them, when no one wanted them he gave them a purpose and friends to support them. It was much like what that couple did, Lexi and Silas, he spat in his mind. What Nate did for the recruits was far better than anything they did, and what he did for they boys and girls helped them more than they every would.

Then he went to check on the grunts that were sitting around a table playing cards and had a bottle of cheap whisky to keep them company.

"Everything in order, boys?" Nate asked walking by.

"Yes, sir," Grunt 3 said.

Nate looked satisfied as he said, "Good, lock up and then go to bed."

Nate went to his room in The Boat House and got ready for bed, too worn out from the day. His room was on the top floor of the building and very secure from all possible entrances and exits, it was also decorated to his liking. The Boat House was one of his oldest locations and one of the safest, which was why he had his recruits stay and live here, there was very little chance in an invasion or a take over.

It was at 3 am in the morning when Francis launched himself into his room.

"Sir, wake up! Something's happened," Francis said frantically, puffing. Worry was coming off him in waves, for the incident and for interrupting his boss' sleep. Francis and everyone at The Boat House were under strict orders to never wake the boss up unless there was a severe emergency, which there was now but that didn't make him less afraid of his boss' wrath.

"What is it?" Nate growled, "This better be important."

"One of the kids," Francis referred to the recruits as Nate normally did to try to calm him a shade, "They've had an asthma attack and they aren't coping. She needs to get to the hospital or something."

Nate leapt out of bed and grabbed his shoes. He was following Francis in second and he lead them to one of the rooms for the recruits, as soon as he got there he could clearly see the girl, Andrea, suffering. She was one of the earliest recruits and Nate knew her well, he found her in an empty apartment struggling to live by herself.

"Andy!" Nate dropped to his knees and put her into a seated position, "Come on."

With Francis next to him, Nate was able to get Andy's condition into her more normal way. After an hour, she and the rest of the girls in the room were settled and quiet.

"Good job, Francis," Nate said, he was even more tired now.

"You too, sir," he said, just as exhausted.

"Right. I'm saying this now, we can leave whatever that needs to be done for the afternoon because I'm going back to bed and so are the rest of the kids so, Francis, go stick a note on the door of their rooms telling them they have the morning free and then go to sleep," Nate said already walking back to his room.

A few hours later, in the boys room, one of them woke up to another shaking his shoulder.

"Hey, wake up. Why hasn't Baxter come thundering in here yet? It's probably past 9 o'clock," Samuel asked.

The room mate he was trying to wake shrugged tiredly and turned his face back into his pillow.

"Urgh, get up before we have to do extra press-ups," Samuel said, "Edwin!"

Edwin groaned, "Fine."

The next few days passed without any trouble and then the day came for the two candidates to finally come to The Boat House.

It was early in the morning when Nate said, "Francis, I need you to go collect Blair Gilbert and Ida Clarke, bring them here, I've already called them. No need to answer their questions, I will when they arrive."

"Yes, sir," Francis left and let Nate get back to work, he was just going through the paperwork to solidify their two roles as the kids' trainers and tutors.

Soon enough Francis brought back the two, Nate was being his melodramatic self and was standing by a window on the second floor of the building and looked down to the driveway to see them step out of the car and look around. Nate flew down the stairs to the front and stood ready to greet his guests. Francis opened the door and gestured for them to enter.

"Welcome to the Boat House, this is part one of my many safe houses around the country. I hope you will be staying on with us because if not then it's too late to change your minds, if you do then don't worry. You'll be on the next flight to soviets," Nate said radiantly, absolutely meaning what he said, it wouldn't be the first time he had done something like that, some people really did annoy him.

"Uh, yeah. Sure, mate," Gilbert said.

"I have a few rules, one, you address me as 'sir' and show respect to me as I will show you. Second, never go to the top floor of any of my buildings or you die, lastly, the novices are the most important people here after me and Francis. Understand?" Nate was explaining.

Gilbert and Clarke stood slightly awkwardly in the foyer as Nate was talking, which he ignored. Nate then lead them to the back half of the bottom floor where the area was mainly reserved for the the recruits and a general workout space.

"Craig, Andy," Nate called. They looked to them and so did most of the others, "Come over here."

The pair left their activities and walked across the mats.

"Craig, Andy, I would like you to meet Blair Gilbert and Ida Clarke," Nate introduced. The children and trainers nodded back to each other politely, "Okay, kiddos, go take them to the rest of your buddies and let them integrate."

He let them settle for an hour as he went to check on the handful of grunts at The Boat House, they were working on a minor task.

"Grunt 3, how are you all managing?" Nate inquired.

Grunt 3 turned to face him, he knew he was 'Grunt 3' and responded to it but he didn't necessarily like it, his real name was Alec Parker and he would rather be referred to as that but he didn't want to upset his boss.

"Good, sir," Grunt 3.

Nate nodded and walked back to his office, when the hour was up he went to see how the recruits and the trainers were doing downstairs. He arrived to see the kids working hard and the trainers standing at the sidelines looking on and muttering to each other disapprovingly.

He walked over to them and said, "So I see you agree with me that the children aren't learning anything from him," he motioned his head towards Grunt 4 who was doing an awful job at teaching them.

Trying to be polite Clarke said, "Well, I wouldn't say that but they could do with some changes in their regime and they could probably benefit from some other exercises."

Gilbert looked a lot like he wanted to say something but he kept quiet.

The children finished up a few minutes later at around noon and they went to the kitchen area which was down stairs. Nate joined them and then left for his office to work. He walked and and sat down happy, the two he chose to look after the children were getting along nicely and the day had been more successful than the past week.

Nate was part way through his work when he felt an explosion that rattled the building.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Sorry for mistakes, no time to edit, just got to keep writing for NaNoWriMo. It's a bit of a filer but enjoy.

Chapter 6

They found her slumped and leaning against the wall at the front of the house. Tom and Alfie discovered she was breathing deeply before Tom quickly opened the front door to call for Will. They were carrying her into the living room with Tom holding her arms and Alfie had her legs. That was how Will saw them, on the way to the main room as he made his way down the stairs as fast as he could with his prosthetic.

"How is she? I think I'm getting deja vu," Will said, "Finding an unconscious woman on the floor, and me trying to heal them. Well, Lexi fell from exhaustion and we aren't really sure about what happened to Yelena but Mallory will want to know. She's been going mad with worry, the past 24 hours have been stressful for all of us."

Will checked Yelena and had come to the conclusion that she had been hit hard across the face and then fell, hitting her head as there was a bump on the back of her head and she must have been tied up, judging from the marks on her exposed wrists and ankles. She might have had a concussion but he wanted to let her sleep for a short while until Mallory arrived half an hour later. Mallory reacted similarly to Silas when greeting his beloved.

Yelena woke up to a bang from a door against a wall. Her eyes flashed and she sat up quickly but she had a painful headache that made her clutch at her head.

"Mal," Yelena said, "Mallory?"

Mallory and Will immediately came by her side and the others in the room crowded over. Will checked her eyes and assessed her condition with a few normal questions as Mallory held her.

"Okay, you seem fine, no concussion but take it carefully for the next few days, no brutal workouts or going on any of our night trips as The Cloaked Red," Will said smiling gently.

Yelena looked happy to be home and with Mallory, "Thanks, Will."

"No problem but take it easy," he said. As soon as he was done Silas came into the room with Lexi, they greeted Yelena and Silas asked for Tom to fetch everyone to come into the living room as he nor Will wanted to move her from the comfortable sofa.

When everyone showed up Yelena began to tell them what had transpired between the meeting she didn't end up going to and then her meeting with Nate (in which Lexi listened intently), where he had punched her in the face making the chair she was tied to fall over, injuring her head.

She then said, "He wanted me to give you a message."

"What is it?" Silas asked anxious.

"'She needs vampire blood to survive the transition, only a drop will do'. I'm pretty sure he was referring to you, Lex. I'm surprised I remembered that," she said.

Eventually Mallory lead Yelena back to their room where they settled in quietly. Back at the living room the 11 of the occupants were debating over their course of action, some were saying there should be an attack to this Nate person that was terrorising their lives (Jenny), another said that they would do no such thing and that they could all deal with the situation in a diplomatic manner with no need to fight or hurt anyone (Lexi).

The tension was building, with Yelena's recent kidnapping and her message, so Lexi said, "Everybody, stop. We can sort this out later because right now I'm tired and I'm sure all of you are feeling the same way, we can debate over this tomorrow."

"You're right. Come on, dear," Silas said, putting his arm around her shoulder.

Everyone began to look as tired as Lexi and Silas felt so they agreed and made their way out the door with the main couple leading.

"I'm just going to check up on Yelena and Mal," Lexi smiled kindly.

"All right, see you in a few minutes," Silas said and he kissed her forehead and went to the master bedroom.

Lexi made her way to the other couple's room, she knocked on the door and heard a voice consenting her to enter. She peered her head in and saw that they were on the floor of the room playing cards and were using old buttons and other small objects for currency.

"Hey, how are you two doing?" Lexi was now in the room and leaning on the door.

"I think we're good, I'm strong and I can pull through this, I've had worse," Yelena said and at this Mallory shook her head.

"I'm not sure that's a reassuring thing," Mal said as Lexi watched on.

Yelena shrugged and then looked to Lexi, "Hey, you want to join? Just look for a few buttons or something like that."

"Sure, I'll just get some stuff and be back in 5," Lexi replied and she left the room.

She then walked to her own room, told Silas that she would be spending time with the girls before going to bed and she grabbed a small bag of sewing supplies. She quickly changed into suitable sleep-wear and then she made a quick trip down to the kitchens to get snacks and drinks and then headed back to Mal and Yelena's room. She knocked again and they let her in, they were still sitting opposite each other but shuffled to make room.

The next hour or so was spent playing cards, gambling shamelessly with both buttons and small objects of worth such as pins. Finally when they all got too tired to carry on the games, Lexi retired back to her room where Silas was reading one of her many novels he must have picked up from the shelf on the other side of the room.

"Hey, you had fun?" Silas asked.

Lexi was already dressed for bed and too tired to go through her night ritual to go to the bathroom so she crawled into the comfortable bed and curled up next to Silas and mumbled out, "It was great, we should do it more often, Jenny would like it." The last few words were hard to understand.

Silas slid in the bookmark to the novel in hand and placed it on the bedside table. Lexi was already asleep when he faced her and he slipped into unconsciousness just as fast.

The next morning Silas woke up peacefully, with the sun shining decadently through the windows and in warm sheets. He murmured his beloved's name but he didn't get a reply, he stretched out his arm expecting to find her but it was a vacant space.

He opened his eyes to be free of Lexi. He frowned and sat up, he quickly got dressed and found out it was only 8 am and went down to the kitchen to see if Lexi was there. She wasn't. Around 10 o'clock he started to get even more worried, she wasn't anywhere to be found and he was starting to get agitated over her disappearance. He supposed she could have been at work but he called in and they reported back to him that she hadn't checked in with them.

However, just after mid-day Lexi came stumbling through the front door, swaying with every step she took. The first person to spot her was Silas, who was pacing greatly distressed but he was filled with relief as he saw her but then concern as she seemed to reach out to hold onto the wall. Her hand almost made contact but missed and she tripped, landing on her side. At this point Silas was rushing forward and had just made it to her as she collapsed onto the rug. Silas examined her breathing before scrutinising her state, she was covered in cut and bruises that littered her body, he could tell by the way she winced unknowingly as he scanned her for other wounds. He discovered that a bone in her left arm had been broken with the cry she sounded as he held it up and pressed down, she had some other lacerations that would clearly need stitches as soon as possible because she was on the rug she loved so much and was bleeding out onto it.

Once again he required Will to help heal her, he didn't want to leave her alone so he shouted for someone in the house to come and as he didn't know who was currently in the home he simply bellowed for help and Mason and Jenny were the first to get to the front of the house. They had both looked down in horror over Lexi's body and Jenny jumped into action, bouncing up the stairs to fetch Will, less than a minute had passed when Will and Jenny came back down the stairs with Will's medical supplies in hand.

"Quick, what first?" he addressed Silas.

"Her cuts, they need to be sewed up, we can't let her bleed out. She hasn't got long," Silas said panicking as Will calmly stepped into his role as doctor and asked Silas and Jenny to hold down on the deeper gouges while he threaded the needle. He took out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and cleaned away the drying blood and the wounds. The he started to sew together the closest cut that was on her arm, that had begun to stop its bleeding and then moved onto another on the under-side of her right leg. Will worked quickly and efficiently until he had to fix her broken bone in her arm, it seemed like a clean break but he would need to re-set the bone which would cause a great amount of pain on Lexi' behalf, even more so than the stitches he had just given and having gone through what she must have done to acquire those injuries, Will wasn't keen on inflicting more pain. So he looked to Silas who gave a nod but before he would set the bone. He took another bottle out of his bag, slightly smaller than the rubbing alcohol and opened her mouth, pouring what must have been a good two mouthfuls and making her swallow first. Will took in a breath and made a jolting movement that pushed the bone into place. Lexi gave a high pitched shriek of suffering as he did so, not making his job easy, but she soon fell asleep from soreness and pain.

Will looked weary as faced Silas, "I suggest she is put, carefully, into her bed for at least a month's rest, from her 'vampire' experience to the stress of Andrew's death and Yelena's kidnapping to now this, she isn't to do anything but recover for a month, at least. Doctor's orders."

"Yes, of course, absolutely," Silas agreed, although he knew he wouldn't let Lexi do anything for the next three months if he could help it, "Would two of you mind helping me take her to the bed? And thank you, Will. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there, sincerely."

"I know, just get her comfortable now," he said as Jenny helped him up.

Silas smiled grimly back to Will and then with Tony and Mason, they carried Lexi up the stairs and into the master bedroom where they laid her softly on the bed.

"Thanks, guys," Silas said. The two men nodded and left Silas with Lexi.

Back down at the front hallway where Lexi had just been lying down on the rug, Will was collecting up his medical supplies bag and Jenny was helping.

"You were really brave, healing Lexi like that," Jenny began.

"No. Don't start on that bullshit. I am here to do what I do. She was dying and I helped her, that's all I care about," Will said.

"Okay, I just want you to know," she replied.

"Well, I do and there's nothing to talk about," Will ended.

"Yeah. Right, um, do you want me to take the bag?" she asked.

"Yes, please. If you would, thank you," he said briskly and he made a start to the staircase and consciously too it step by step, taking consideration of his prosthetic which he had more or less thrown aside when he was down on the floor by Lexi.

Jenny walked up the stairs the same time Will did, and with him when they reached his floor, walked him to his door. He opened it and gave an indication for her to enter, she had never really been in too many of other people's' rooms and was slightly surprised to see the room cluttered with objects of all kinds, she was expecting this out of his roommate but not Will as he seemed to be more organised and orderly around others and his room didn't reflect that. At that moment Will's roommate wasn't there and it was just the two of them.

"This is it for me. Anything interesting?" he asked.

"A little," she said and then delicately tread through the clothes on the floor to the doorway, "See you at dinner."

He nodded and but was somewhat disappointed to see her leave.

In Lexi and Silas' room Lexi was fast asleep while Silas lay by her side restlessly. In his mind he was trying to think about the possible perpetrators, Nate, the man that had taken her before was a clear suspect but other than that he couldn't think of anyone else. Lexi was a loveable person who made friends everywhere she went, no matter their race, sexuality or gender, it was one of the reasons she had so many connections with people and why they were able to talk to Aurelia and Alexei about her 'vampirism' and the ideas behind it. So Silas couldn't think of a reason why anyone would want to hurt her, including Nate because as far as he was concerned he didn't think Lexi knew him before he kidnapped her and so he couldn't come up with a for anyone willing to cause pain to Lexi. This meant that the attack on her was most likely a mugging that didn't end well and with Lexi being beaten up, this made him frustrated and angry. He wanted to hurt the people that had hurt her but if he ever did then it would easily upset Lexi as she had too much compassion in her to do something like that.

Silas had missed too much work lately and was considering quitting and selling off the business but he would still need and income, something to do during the day and besides, he liked working at the garage too much to leave permanently. He then decided to take official time off, he was sure his assistant and the other employees would be able to handle the workload, if not then he could simply step in when needed.

Silas left a bell on the nightstand which Lexi could ring if she woke up, even though it was very unlikely but he wanted to be there for her, so he left the door to their room wide open after checking and bolting the windows and shutting the curtains.

He went down to the kitchens to join the others for dinner as he would have to tell the others of what happened to Lexi. He and Lexi were very keen on keeping everyone in the household an active part of the events and developments happening so that no one would be excluded or on their own. Of course, people had their own personal secrets that would never be shared unless the secret keeper would decide to tell others, in that case, everything would be dealt with one by one.

At last when he got to the kitchen people were eating and talking about Lexi's incident, with Will and Jenny sitting next to each other off to a side where they didn't comment in the discussions. He passed through the door and a hushed silence fell over them all. Walking to in front of the people he started to give a general explanation and when he got round to the end he said, "I'm not sure why she was attacked but she is home now and we are going to do everything we can to aid her in her healing. And yes, I will asked her of her account of what transpired to get her into a state that she is in now. So for now, finish your meals and go back to your usual activities. We'll all be fine."

Silas finished talking and then everyone else started discussing what he said. Then he went to get a portion of the food and sat down with Will and Jenny.

"Are you doing okay?" Jenny asked him.

"Yeah, I'm actually fine, a bit shaken up over Lex but just more worried about her than anything," Silas said truthfully. He ate his dinner with them and when done he left the room with the pair and went upstairs to each of their rooms.

He had a fleeting thought about Jenny and Will but he dismissed it as he summarized that it would be totally insignificant and not mean a thing to with either of them. So he soon got to his own room to see Lexi still peacefully asleep.

The days passed slowly, just as they did when Silas had first waited fofr his beloved to wake a short time ago but after day 3 Lexi awoke uneventfully. She was still very sore from her injuries but she was relaxed and calm when she woke up with Silas beside her, it was just before dawn as she could see out of the window where the morning light was beginning to seep into the clouds. With her eyes still closed she tried to lift her arms and even though in pain she successfully did so and reached out to place it on Silas' chest.

"Silas," she croaked out and gave a painful cough, "Silas, wake up."

He mumbled something and then seemed to realise that Lexi was awake.

"Oh! Lexi, you're awake," he exclaimed and sat up, "How are you? What do you need?"

She twitched her lips into something resembling a smile and gave another small cough.

"I'll be back in a moment," Silas said recognising what she wanted him to do.

She lay there after watching him leave and looked to the ceiling. There was an interesting pattern of swirls, coloured in cream paint, she followed the direction of them with her eyes as they twisted and turned around, she got to the corner of the room when silas came back in with a glass of water in hand and some bread from the kitchens.

"Here, drink up," Silas was now by her side and had lifted her head and shoulders against him and held the glass to her lips, she drank contently until it was completely drained. On the topic of drinking her mind wandered off to the other liquid that she quite recently wanted to devour, blood.

Now that talking wasn't as painful, she said, "Silas, I.. I need… blood." She finally said the word and looked away from his face, marginally ashamed.

"No, no it's fine," Silas said trying to reassure her, once again he brought out his dagger from the bedside table and delicately made a laceration into his hand, this time deeper than last and lifted it closer to her lips, allowing her to drink deeply. It was less than a minute but she pulled away and smiled gently to him, his blood still on her lips and coating her teeth.

"I'll get you some more water to get rid of the blood," he sat up again, putting pressure on his hand and slid out of bed.

Lexi wanted to wipe the blood from her lips but she was too tired to move, even after feeding. She thought about that word, 'feeding', she didn't like it but it was a more suitable term to refer to her drinking Silas' blood to live but she wasn't sure if she needed to drink blood or if it was more of a desired thing, and she didn't know how frequently she would have to 'feed' from her beloved. They all still didn't know very much about her state or how strong her restraint would be because most of the past stories and myths included the fact that 'vampires' would lose control and kill, but so far she hadn't attacked or murdered anyone to her knowledge.

Silas came back refreshed and with a damp towel in hand, he came to her and let her drink another glass of water and then took off the blood staining her already red lips.

"You'll what happened," Lexi began, but Silas then interrupted her.

"No, I don't, not yet at least. It's going to be better if you tell everyone at once, that saves you from repeating it and going through it again as little as possible and you would have the people most important to you surrounding you. I understand the situation but you need to rely on other people other than me, that everyone in the house are more than happy to be there for you, for anyone."

Tears welled in her eyes but she didn't cry, just pulled herself closer to him, while the damage done to her still paining her movements.

Only a few hours had passed when they next awoke, they got dressed and adjourned to the living room where all household members were seated, told to be there at this time. Lexi walked in with the support of Silas and started to tell her version of the events.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A/N: Again, I haven't had any time to spare for editing. Thanks for reading if you've got this far.

Nate was confused, worried and pissed off. His confusion for the explosion stemmed on the fact that this very base had never been found and there had never ever been hostile attacks to his bases in England. His worry was for the children and the new trainers, which he chose to keep both of them as deciding between them was too hard and he could afford to have both of them on board with him, he also worried for Francis, he was a man with a family to go home to and Francis himself wasn't exactly a very young man, not very old but not entirely young neither. His irritation and anger was for anyone who dared to cross him, they clearly had no idea of who they were attacking, otherwise they would be severely terrified and fear greatly for their lives if they thought they were of any worth.

As soon as the explosion hit Nate was rocked back off his chair and fell to the side and was on the floor, however he was fine, with only a few scratches he pulled himself up and ignored the fallen objects that were scattered about and quickly loaded up with the firearms in his office, two side arms with magazines in his pockets and a few knives already tucked away, he then rushed out the door. He found the rest of the corridor much like his office: shaken up, but he then made a bee-line down to the bottom floor where the children were working with Grunt 4 and Gilbert and Clarke, where Francis would have also been.

He was jogging towards the kids and down the stairs with his gun in front of him, alert and ready for anyone or anything to attack to him but luckily nothing did and he made it safely. however he couldn't say the same about the people downstairs.

The explosion mustn't have been too large as the majority of the area was intact and only a few were hurt. He went to the other side of the room at once as he could see that one of the kids had been trapped under a frame that was too heavy to pull up himself, others were trying to help him but they weren't doing much good. The boy trapped was Arthur and he was biting his knuckles painfully to try to stop himself from crying out as his legs were stuck under heavy metal, Nate suspected that his right leg had to be broken and both had to be very bruised and slightly bloodied.

There were sounds of crying and sobbing behind him so he gave a quick scan around the wrecked space and then focused on freeing Arthur but not before ordering a few of his men to guard the kids and the others to patrol the area and deal with any situation or intruders with extreme prejudice.

Nate calmed down the kids before saying, "Craig, hold that end, Chuck, get the other. On the count of three we're going to lift. Andy, you pull him out."

They did as they were told and Andy managed to pull him out of the way, trying to not listen to Arthur's shouts, in time for them to drop the frame back down onto the ground. Nate then sent them off to the back of the room with a medical kit to do what they could and where the other kids were standing closely together.

As soon as they were more or less safe, the grunts that were patrolling came through the front door dragging two men by the tops of their arms. He told them to tie them up, making sure that they don't escape and to transport them to the next warehouse he had which was about 10 miles away.

After dealing with that situation he got 4 of his men to take the kids in separate groups to the cars and to take them to the closest and safest base after this one, The Cottage, which to its name suggests that it is a small but cozy second base for the kids, grunts and himself to stay at for a temporary time while the whole attacking fiasco is being sorted out. As far as he knew the two men were the only clear suspects but he was sure that they weren't the mastermind behind the intrusion on one of his favourite bases. He had a few suspects in mind but he decided to keep it to himself.

Roughly five hours later they all got to The Cottage, with the two guilty culprits in the car boots, and each car had at least 1 grunt to lower the chances of the children being hurt again. The kids soon settled in with the trainers, who had the most hectic first day at a job, ever, they had been though the war but this was really something entirely new. Everyone had to share but they made room and were gracious with each other, as they were all shaken up from the events that only happened a few hours ago, just after they had been training and working like any other day, where nothing traumatic would happen.

Nate only brought with him a medium briefcase of beginnings that he managed to scrounge out of his office, they included enough fire power to last a week at war, very important documents (There were only a few, he didn't like storing all significant information at any one location, he would rather make it hard to find for any potential threats, he was paranoid that way), and some other useful bits and bobs that would be handy in certain situations, such as another attack of he and his kids. Most of the novices only to what they had with them when the attack hit, not much more than a water bottle and a change of clothing, however Nate, as said before is greatly paranoid, had stocks of the basic materials to survive a month without leaving the building as 'The Cottage' was a property that had been built on top of a large bomb shelter that Nate kept secret and for emergencies, such as the one presented.

After arriving Nate ordered some grunts to take the still unconscious men to the underground bomb shelter while some more grunts would watch over the kids/trainers and patrol the area. Luckily, the bomb shelter was largely sound-proofed, meaning that what the kids had been through didn't have to worsen from hearing the screams Nate was going to have the two men make. While the trainers could probably protect themselves and bear the noises and sight of Nate torturing the perpetrators.

When Nate opened the doors to the bomb shelter he could see that the two men on their knees were already slightly bloodied and bleeding, which he didn't mind because he was generous sometimes, and giving the grunts a chance to make them bleed didn't go badly with him, in fact he encouraged it, bottling up resentment and anger wasn't something Nate appreciated, he would rather someone be honest with him and get mad than keeping quiet and silently hating. Nate liked expression, especially the physical kind in pain and suffering of the wrongdoers.

So he got to work, and inflicted as much agony as he could within the hour, having fun hurting the people who hurt his people. None of the grunts who stood by the doors looked away, more like they eagerly watched on, perhaps wanting to have a go for themselves. Nate used all the available and fitting equipment on the premises and enjoyed making the men, if you could call them men, regret their choice in striking at Nate and his kids.

The hour was up and the bloodied messes on the cold hard floor could barely breathe without causing pain. They had missing fingers, deep lacerations absolutely covered in rock salt, various bullet wounds, removed teeth and blunt strips of metal wedged in their bodies., not to mention the many broken bones and failing organs. In their mind they were begging for death, how amazing it would be to be free of the torment on their bodies, soon to be corpses. Before the torture session neither of the men wanted to die but that was then and this was now, which meant unbearable suffering, for them at least. Nate could do worse things to the people who actually ordered it, the actions were undoubtedly from a higher authority than these men, their IQs were just in double digits and they went to the army to fight as they weren't competent enough to understand the schooling, by Nate's thoughts anyway.

Eventually Nate got tired of hearing their pathetic cries so he put bullets in the back of their heads.

"Take them away," Nate said without remorse, "Put them where we usually put them."

A few of his men dragged away the bodies of the men who could now no longer do any harm to him or his kids. Nate walked to the doors and left the bomb shelter but then he caught his reflection on a window as he made his way to where the kids would be.

He was covered in the men's blood, even his hair. His clothes weren't ripped but his shirt and slacks were stained as they had been bleeding out on them. So he changed direction and his bedroom to get a change of clothing and then went to the closest bathroom to shower and change.

He walked to his also small but cozy bedroom and removed a pair of snug fitting jeans and dark blue shirt out of a drawer and then went to the bathroom across the hallway in just his bloodied trousers. He took a short shower and cleaned up. In his fresh clothes and barefoot on the wooden floorboards he went downstairs to meet the kids who had also changed into a set of non-gendered clothing, essentially sweat pants and plain shirts, generally better than what they had on before, dirty and covered in dust from the explosion at The Boat House.

When he arrived he could see that their happiness levels were clearly way below average, they were miserable and tired. So he told them to get food and and go to sleep since training and any work was being withheld until they were in a more safe and secure place, both literal and figuratively as The Cottage was more or less safe, just not totally guaranteed. Half of them were piled into the surprisingly large kitchen and helped with making something edible. The Cottage was already stocked up on non perishables but without any fresh produce such as fruit and vegetables so he sent two grunts on a small mission to find a decent market with a very clear shopping list, it was a better job than disposing the bodies, by far.

They arrived with the food a few minutes after Nate and some of the kids got to the kitchen. In the end the group of them, with people switching in and out taking turns, they made a stack of sandwiches along with two large pots of vegetable soup that would feed the whole household, simple but filling and it took their minds off the potential threat at hand. Even though Nate had enemies 24/7 and they all knew that, these people were the first to attack in a long while, since before most of the kids had even known Nate as he was very paranoid, he never got anything unexpected.

Everyone was pretty content afterwards and Nate went back to his office/bedroom and worked on a location where they would settle into next, he had many but he was also looking for one fairly close to London so that he could keep the kids in a busy and populated city and also to finish off his project with that Cloaked Red group that he had been toying with. He still wasn't through with messing with them and having so much fun he couldn't simply abandon them, they might feel lonely and disappointed, wouldn't they? In any case, he had recently sent out a relatively small task force dressed in civilian gear to jump one of the members of The Cloaked Red, he didn't particularly care about who he just ordered the men to follow one of them, the more the merrier, as soon as they came out of the very front, to follow undetected. Which would have been fairly easy if it wasn't for their pesky gut instincts but the one they got to must have been awfully trusting because he got reports back saying how painfully pathetic it was. The grunts he ordered to do the job were told to make it look like a regular mugging, take a purse or wallet and a small gun for show and to keep it clean, not too many bones and no internal organs, skin deep was fine.

Nate just wanted to give them a good scare as that girl he took wasn't at all fun, she hung there boringly, although, she was much better than that Lexi girl. He was being honest when he told the girl he took that Lexi had been a bore, way too ordinary.

Nate finished his plans to head to The Garage in a few days after laying low, he had equipment that kept all contact strictly between he and the people he would be talking to, so that nothing would be intercepted by anyone or anything, it was a nifty piece of tech he acquired from a friend of a friend a few months after the war.

He sent off notes with various bits of information and had them given to grunts who would do different tasks, for instance, a few would go directly to The Garage and scout it out to see if there were any threats at the site before actually going there with the kids.

The days after passed excruciatingly slowly, everyone including Nate were bored out of their minds and had nothing to do but chat and cook, although a few of the kids used what ingredients they had to make some cakes, which were the highlight of their days. Nate's outlook on life had dropped drastically, not a week ago the best part of his week was shooting some manic but now it was cake. So very low expectations.

However, the day eventually came, minute by minute, for them all to leave the wretched place and get back to work. The recruits had no idea how much they needed training and work in their lives until the past few days. They all cheered and the gloomy and drab mood surrounding them had lifted and they were all joyous again. Yay.

Once again everyone loaded up the cars with grunts driving and they took what little luggage they had with them and set off to The Garage, Nate had given a minor talk just before, explaining their new home and what would happen.

Later on Nate would obviously go with a few of his men to The Boat House after the situation had died down to retrieve what he could of the kids stuff and anything worth of use. He would then deliberately destroy the building in a much more civilised manner by sending a bomb down on it, as any passer-by would look to it and think that it must have been a structure caught in the middle of the war and not a secret base for Nate's operations. The bombs might be slightly costly but they would be needed for the cover story.

The drive to their new location wasn't as long this time, only at around 2 hours compared. Most of the kids were too excited to sleep, absolutely thrilled to be getting active and away from sitting around for days. Even though they had nothing to do but talk for along time by their standards they were still chatting nonstop on their car journey.

For a man looking after more than a handful of recruits and paying salaries for his men, he was still incredibly rich, crazy rich, Nate had come into his fortune in many ways, most of them legal but it did the job so he could still afford to pay for the many cars he owned. Some were rather boring and what any regular person would own and some were interesting and great to drive.

Nate arrived first with a few grunts and they gave another quick run down of the area and declared it safe for the kids to be there and then Nate finally went into The Garage. Much like its name it was slightly dim in lighting (that could be fixed) but resourceful, he tended name places and objects generally logically but sometimes with a fun name, like The Cookie Jar. Which was a small but sweet (loaded with all types of carry on weapons thinkable, such as guns or arrows (not that many people used arrows but he actually knew a fairly nice couple that did and they were very good at what they did)) and was another untraceable safe house that no one knew about, just him and not even his kids.

The Garage was much larger than The Cottage, it was similar to The Boat House but not as safe, but Nate was working on that and it was on its way to being even more secure than The Boat House, so that he could start to provide a home for the kids that they could go back to.

The kids got to The Garage about half an hour later and the place was up and running. Water, electricity and heating was on and the whole place was ready, it wasn't spotless but it would do, The Garage had a great character and a more interesting history that Nate could go over with the kids later.

They were all ecstatic and as they hopped out of the cars they saw Nate was standing at the front doors holding them open.

"Hey, Nate," Andy said..

"Hi, Andy, you all get here okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, how's this place doing?"

"It's great, you'll love it. It's got all the toys," Nate said, thinking about the extensive equipment they had here, for creating stuff and for working out.

Nate let all the kids and the trainers pile through the doors and loiter in the lobby, The Garage was large enough to have a lobby, and then he told them to wander around the place to get used to it, just not go into his office or room as the doors are labeled. Later on Nate called out for them to pick a room, most would have to share but this just presented a chance for the kids to switch up and change who they were staying with, although some didn't change as there were about 2 couples that Nate simply dotted on and wouldn't dare try to split up. They were still young and meddling with their relationships would just end very very badly. Nate had a few relationships, som ended extremely badly, some ended on a more mature now but what he did know was not to get involved with other people's relationships and that he wasn't interested in anything for the near future as he was too busy raising the kids into independant people that could defend for themselves and that they could grow up happy, he just wanted what was best for them.

Nate didn't plan to do anything for the day they got here but he made the halls available for the kids to workout. The halls were multi-purpose and there were cupboards with varied equipment. So when he wandered around to see what they were doing a few hours later after getting settled he found Cole and Clarke, the trainer, in the actual garage tinkering with things. He asked them how they were doing but they seemed to be content by themselves, he then found a handful of the kids boxing and a few of the girls in the reasonable sized kitchen experimenting with baking, Nate was honestly but fondly worried over what the results would be of their work would looked like they were making some sort of dessert or pudding but they were running around the kitchen making something.

Eventually dinner time came round and all the kids, trainers and some of the grunts present came huddled around the door of the kitchen, all hungry and a tad impatient. Everyone in the kitchen who was baking more or less forgot about supper and was focusing on dessert so they ended up making some beef and vegetable soup and brown bread, not at all interesting but it was enough to fill.

Later on Jonathan, one of the kids, walked up to the door of Nate's office and knocked.

"Come in," Nate called, "Jonathan," Nate said surprised, "What brings you here?"

"Uh, hi. I just wanted to talk," he replied.

"Sure, what's going on. Have a seat, how are you settling here?" Nate asked.

"Yeah, it's fine," Jonathan said distracted.

"Come on, tell me what's going on," Nate encouraged.

"Me and Aimee had a fight and she won't talk to me. I tried to apologise but she wouldn't listen," Jonathan was explaining he had made a small mistake and regretted it but he couldn't get through to her.

A few minutes later and a thorough talk, Jonathan left Nate's office feeling slightly better and in a more positive mood. Nate wasn't one to get involved but if one of the kids actually came to him for advice and guidance then he wouldn't turn them away.

"I'll talk with her and see how she feels," Nate said holding open the door, Jonathan smiled at him and walked back to his room. He shared with Aimee but they were mature and she wasn't in there right now so it was safe.

He tiredly open the door and took a step before flopping onto the bed on his back and stared at the ceiling, not that the ceiling was particularly interesting. He yanked his jacket off and lied back. Jonathan sighed, he was frustrated and really needed to do something, like take a run or punch a punching bag or do a load of pull ups. But he sighed again and rolled over pressing his face into the pillow.

Nate was finishing up in his office and left work to do later. He was on his way to look for Aimee and he found her after looking around half the building. She was on her own and in one of the smaller sitting rooms on the second floor, only 3 by 3 metres, and was reading a book. The afternoon was ending and the curtains were open letting the last of the light from the sunset in. He got a closer look and it was clear that she had been crying as her eyes were still red, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

"Hey, Aimee. Wanna go to the shooting range?" Nate asked leaning against the door frame.

She frowned but she closed her book and followed him out the door, they walked side by side in a dim silence.

"Here," Nate handed her a pistol and he picked up a Russian revolver himself and directed her to the targets on the other side of the room. She was still confused but she stood in the appropriate stance, aimed and fired three rounds.

"Right. Now tell me what is going on with you and Jonathan."

She looked down to her feet and didn't meet his eyes again, "We, uh, had a fight."

nate obviously knew that it wasn't a physical one but if it was then he wouldn't blame them, a good spar might do wonders and with all their training they could definitely hold their own in a combat situation, it would have also been in a controlled environment which would mean that people could step in if the fight got out of hand. So he made it a suggestion.

"Look, I know that Jonathan was a bit of an idiot and was spectacularly dumb in that moment but he is also very sorry about what he said but he loves you, and so I have an idea that might work," Nate was saying. Aimee appeared to be a bit more attentive as she looked up from the floor and to Nate.

Nate jumped straight in, "Why don't the both of you spar, go a few rounds in the room next door. You can give him a good throw down and work out all your teenage-y feelings in this, yeah?"

Aimee was now undoubtedly interested now, she had a small twinkle in her eye as she formed a small smile.

"Yeah, that'd be cool," she agreed.

"Absolutely, but you're having a crowd. Lord knows how Jonathan is going to get his arse kicked by you. Don't want him to be a puddle on the mats," he said and she grinned. "Now let's check your aim."

They walked around to the counter and across the wide space. Aimee was still grinning as she saw the results. Nate patted her shoulder, "Well done, kiddo. So, in an hour then, get ready and be next door by 6."

"Yeah," Aimee said as she practically bouncing out of the room with Nate just behind her after putting the guns away into their proper places.

As darkness fell, the kids, trainers, some grunts and Nate gathered in the hall next to the shooting range. Nate gave a quick note to Jonathan about the plan, he was worried but not too concerned, the time came and he was already there and in the centre of the room. They were all waiting for Aimee, all completely bored. A few minutes later she cranked open the door and strode into the hall. Everyone stared as she came in.

"You know, I did say 6 o'clock," Nate said approaching her. Aimee shrugged and started for the mats where Jonathan was.

"Round 1 out of three," Nate said, loud enough so the whole hall could hear him.

Jonathan visibly gulped and stood in a sparring position: ready. They met at the centre facing each other, they gave a nod and then backed up a few steps and circled each other. A moment later Aimee threw the first punch which he dodge and then he blocked another, he kicked out aiming at her knee but she moved out of the way and gripped the back of his leg shoving him off his feet and landed on his back with a thump but then swiped out with his other leg, also making her fall to the mat, her hands reaching out saving her from smashing her face into the floor, as she did that he leapt up.

The fight was fast and intense as the audience watched on focusing on their movements. People cheered whenever there was a harsh and sharp move. They kept going, bruising and giving each other minor injuries until Aimee pinned Jonathan to the mat her knee at the back of his neck and his arm pulled painfully behind him. They were both covered in sweat and puffing hard as Jonathan slapped the mat thrice to signal his defeat for the first round. Aimee pushed herself up and Jonathan rolled onto his back, she stretched out her hand for him and he accepted. She pulled him up half way when he pulled her back down, making her land on her side with a sound and he was now standing.

She glared at him and he smirked at her.

"Har har har. Very funny, J," Aimee said, disgruntled and looking forward to round 2.

Jonathan was still smirking at her when he said, "So am I, dear."

He was feeling better, much better. they were on speaking terms, pretty much anyway. Even if it meant sparring to make that happen, Nate was brilliant, great ideas from that man. Jonathan was satisfied with the current situation and chugged down almost a full jug of water at the side until Andy came up behind him and smacked him on the back of his head, making him spew out the water in his mouth and drop the close to empty jug.

"Dick move, doofus," Andy said with her arms crossed and facing him, "Thought you were smart, and you should have heard me approaching, idiot. You're slipping."

He gaped at her for a second before defending himself, "Erm, pardon me for my greatness as you lame persons try to prepare for my invasion of expertise in the game of winning at life. I am not slipping, I thought I proved that on the mats."

She rolled her eyes and just said, "Humph. Well you're going to have to do something 'great' if you want A to forgive and have you back."

"I know."

The next round was similar to the first round, it was quick and tough with Aimee winning once again. The third and final round was slightly different.

A few minutes before the end Aimee was winning, she was holding out as Jonathan was struggling to keep up.

"Come on, J, keep up, don't you want them to be proud of you. You want to impress people don't you. All your life, trying to live up to other people's standards," she taunted. He was glaring murderously but then his expression cleared and became blank.

His next move was the game changer and he managed to flip her onto her front but her arms not reaching out in time to save her fall. He grabbed her forearms quickly and restrained them firmly so she couldn't move, his elbow was digging in harder than necessary into the back of her left shoulder and his weight at his advantage, holding her down making sure she wasn't able to do anything in retaliation.

As the clear winner he got up, ignored everyone and left the hall.

The crowd was still watching without any input but they heard her comment and saw him leave, they were quiet for another moment before everyone was talking.

Nate rapidly went to Aimee who was still in the middle of the room, still and obviously instantly guilty about what she said. She looked to him and he nodded and tilted his head in the direction of the door.

"Go," he mouthed, she reacted hastily and went through the doors as well, the only person after Jonathan to leave. She checked all the nearby rooms before climbing the first few set of stairs and finding him at the very top on the last stairs in the building. She knew he knew that she was there and timidly came to him, she sat down on the step to the right of him and put her hands on her lap.

"I'm sorry."

He didn't look away from the steps in front of him.

She put her tired arms around his body sideways, leaning into him. "I'm sorry."

He acknowledged her apology and hugged the arm in front of him closer to his chest. She squeezed tighter and they sat there for a while quietly.

Eventually they had to return to the others but they turned in for the night instead.

The next morning they came down to the main area with Aimee's arm threaded through his, where everyone was lounging around or eating breakfast. No one really noticed their entrance which they were absolutely fine with until Andy squealed and jumped up from her seat, literally, and then over the coffee table to give them a bear hug, squeezing the three of them together tightly.

"Yes! Together forever!" Andy said, happy that her favourite couple weren't fighting anymore.

"Okay, Andy, ease up," Aimee said as they both gave each other a look and patted her back. Andy let them go but fired questions at them.

"So, how did it go? Did you spar again? Who won? No, wait, I don't think you thought again, did you? Did you talk it out? We haven't seen you since the dramatic exit, how was the make up sex?"

Aimee stopped her at that point, "Nope there wasn't any, don't go wild with this. Everything's okay now, right, hon?" She looked to Jonathan who rolled his eyes but agreed.

Nate then came in with Francis by his side and said to the trio, "You're together again, my plans are a success and I am amazing."

Andy slapped the side of Nate's arm with the back of her hand lightly, "Sure, but I'm the best at plotting."

Nate looked definitely flabbergasted, there was no other way to describe his face and the hand over his heart, he was astounded as he gasped, "No freaking way." Nate and Andy proceeded to debate over the best person at manipulating and awesomeness.

Behind Nate, Francis rolled his eyes and watched the dramatics amused. The couple stayed for another moment before getting tired of their antics and left for the kitchen.

Nate and Andy were still arguing by the time they got back, but it had been reduced to sitting down on the arm chairs throwing insults about each other's abilities.

"Come on, Natalia and Andrea. Take a break, go take a bath or eat a packet of beans," Jonathan suggested.

Nate and Andy abruptly stopped their chatter and turned their heads at the same time to glare at Jonathan. "No," they said in sync and flatly.

"That's creepy. Don't do that," Aimee commented, resting on the arm of the arm chair Jonathan was seated on.

"Do what? This?" Nate and Andy mirrored, still talking at the same time.

"Do they practice?" Jonathan asked Aimee, completely weirded out, "Do you practice?" he aimed at the two in front of them, behaving oddly.

"No, we do not practice," they chorused. Andy was having trouble keeping a straight face and burst out laughing.

"Sorry, can't keep going," she choked out as she leaned forward laughing hard.

"I am certainly not amused Andrea Katerina Johnson. You have failed our first attempt at scaring the people of the world," he said sternly.

"Yeah, yeah. As you keep saying," Andy said, "but you've got to admit, it was funny watching them squirm." She inclined her head to where Aimee and Jonathan were and behind them where Francis was on the sofa.

"Okay, I've actually got to go now, with actual work to do," Nate said standing up.

"Aww, really? We were having so much fun," Andy whined. Nate grinned and mused her hair and she quickly swatted his hand away and gave him a death glare. "Never touch the hair, mate. Never know where that hand of yours might end up."

She was re-doing her hair as Nate signalled for Francis to follow him, Nate looked down to Andy who was still sitting. "Laters, Andrea."

Andy sighed and followed him out with her eyes. Aimee gasped and jumped up from her place next to Jonathan and plopped down on the space next to Andy.

"My God, you like him!" Aimee said wide eyed. Looking from Andy to Jonathan who realised the revelation in that moment as well as his other half repeated, "You like him. Andrea Katerina Johnson, you like Nate!"

"No. I do not. And what is it with everyone today and using my full name? I like 'Andy'," Andy said.

"Don't try to change the subject, we are going to talk about the technicalities of this predicament," this came from Jonathan this time who got up from his seat and sat down on the other side of Andy, thus sandwiching Andy between Jonathan and Aimee, trapping her from leaving as the interrogation came from Aimee and Jonathan was just moral support for them both.

Andy made an irritated noise, put out by their outrageousness. "You two are impertinent fools who never listen."

"Nope," Aimee disagreed, " She's just in denial, isn't she?" she said to Jonathan, leaning forward, speaking over Andy who was disgruntled so she crossed her arms and stared ahead into the window looking out to the garage in front.

Jonathan leaned forward and said, "Absolutely. And oh, look, it's Nate. I was wondering about what she was so focused on." Jonathan and Aimee were smiling widely and looked smug, Andy cast her eyes away from the window where Nate was driving one of his more expensive and treasured cars with Francis in the passenger seat holding onto the car door and front as Nate threw the car out of the garage, onto the paved ground and then sped up even more on the way out of the facility. By the time he and Francis had gone completely out of sight jonathan caught Andy glancing out of the window again.

"We knew it, Andrea Johnson likes Nate and she can't stay away," Jonathan was going on.

"I do not, you twit. He's too old anyway," Andy said.

Aimee gasped again, "You admit you do like Nate!"

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you just did and how is he 'too old'? You're 23 and he's only 32 and a totally successful guy," Aimee started at.

"And he would be perfect for each other, both crazy psychos and always pranking everyone," Jonathan ended. He and Aimee were a team and stronger than ever.

The couple finally let Andy go from holding her hostage but called out encouraging things as she got further away.

"You know you like him."

"He totally likes you back."

And so on. Andy was heading back to her room to curl up in bed under the cozy covers and never leave.

About 50 miles away Nate's frantic driving was still scaring Francis and they were about to meet up with some arms dealers to make sure they weren't the ones behind the attack or in any association with it and to also get on friendly terms with them, Nate had a large trunk of cash in the back seat. Nate was driving because he didn't want to show any fear, which he didn't have, it would just be any old meeting that he'd been through with Francis many times before, but that didn't mean he was and idiot, no matter what Andy said, he had a large car full of his grunts only two miles back, meaning if the encounter went down hill Nate had back up. Although, Nate could handle himself well on his own as his strength and senses were unparalleled to any other human.

He rolled up to the back of an abandoned warehouse where he and they agreed to meet. Nate had knives and guns hidden all over him, he was almost ready for anything.

Just maybe not the man with the rather heavy crowbar whacking him and Francis around the back of their heads as they were just about to greet the two men just behind the front of the large table with a wide range of guns and of other weaponry.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Everyone was horrified, to hear about Lexi's attack and how it went down. What happened was that as Lexi made her way to the telephone company for work she was ambushed and forced into an alley way, all exits trapped by heavy set men, people she could usually take down if she wasn't in such delicate situation. They took her handbag off her arm, which she offered willingly for a ticket away from them but they weren't listening. They took her bag and then proceeded to give her a beating, she fought back but not enough to get away unharmed, they wanted to make sure she wouldn't talk. All their faces were hidden by fabric tied around their faces and covering their nose and mouth and they wore hoods, making it even more difficult to identify them. They left her alone after seeing that she couldn't do very much, little did her attackers know that she was trained and was very stubborn to survive, so she limped back to the house, opened the door and fell in. That was when Silas and Will got to her and helped her get better, stitching up her wounds and putting her bones in place.

Alfie went to fetch her a cup of tea after they all got a moment to mull over her words. All of The Cloaked Red was in need of a lot of tea really. Or just something positive to happen as the time in their lives so far was depressing and gloomy. He returned to find mostly everyone in the same places, not having moved very much, even the spot he was in before hadn't been taken. He handed the cup and saucer to Lexi who accepted it and gave a grateful smile.

"So, out list of things to do just increased by a mountain. Finding Nate, for Lexi and Yelena," Silas said and Yelena nodded to him. "Then to try find a cure or something that would mean a longer life for Lexi, catching Lexi's attackers and then the general Cloaked Red business of bringing criminals to justice. So we have a busy schedule for the next few months or so, I hope this is what you signed up for." Silas said this bit slightly bitter, he didn't want to lose Lexi, she was his everything but she was also always in trouble in some form or another, from the vampire stuff to Nate kidnapping their people to a random mugging on the streets. Lexi was a literal magnet for danger, for herself and not much more. She wasn't clumsy or anything, infact, Lexi was very graceful but she was also very compassionate towards other people, always putting them first. Which was why she needed Silas, he focused on her, always putting her first and foremost.

Silas then gave instructions to people to do different jobs, some would carry on with the crime fighting, some would be searching for the men who attacked Lexi, she said there were about four of them. That left two other tasks. Silas and a few of the other people got to have the vampire task but they managed to figure out that Nate was probably a 'vampire' so with the information that said lexi had to ingest some vampire blood to survive, they were on the hunt for Nate who they figured had to be one of those vampires and that would kill two birds with one stone. So far, they hadn't done very well with finding nat even though his kidnapping of Lexi was a month ago and they still didn't have a strong lead on anything related at all apart from the myths and legends that Lexi's friends had given them, even then they were still just stories that might not be true. They were all frustrated and annoyed with the unwanted results and all the dead ends they had been finding.

Silas and Lexi were still sitting on the couch by the end of Silas' instructions and Lexi's pep talk afterwards, trying to lighten the mood. They stayed there for a few more minutes, quietly with each other while the people milled about around them getting to work.

Lexi drained the rest of her tea, put the cup and saucer in front of her on the table and stood up. She held out a hand that wasn't wrapped up in bandages for Silas to take. They got off the sofa and went to check on the progress of each task. The closest was in the training room where a few of them were scanning the newspapers and any form of information on catching the criminals on the streets of London.

"Hey, guys," Mason greeted.

"Find anything?" Silas said, he was hoping for a distraction as the Nate situation and finding help for Lexi was going badly, nothing could be confirmed or denied and anything that might work could potentially hurt Lexi or kill her, and Silas wouldn't do anything that might contribute to that but leaving the situation and letting her wait it out for a few months was out of question. Silas couldn't do anything to help or just leave the situation to die out, he was stuck.

"We might have, there were reports of a murder near the Thames. The police say that there were odd markings on the vic but that might be because the police are blind and aren't very competent," Mason said shrugging.

"No, that's good," Silas said in planning mode. "We can go there later to check out the place tomorrow, half of us will go to the morgue and have a look at the body to see if there's anything and the other half can check out the crime scene and find out if there are any eye witness accounts."

"I want to go." Lexi fidgeted with her one hand on the side of her blue skirt.

"No, Lex, you can't, you've only just gotten through a mugging and they left you for dead on the street," Silas countered.

"I can handle this, and I won't have to do anything heavy but I want to help," she said. They argued for a few minutes as Mason was rifling through the documents and then Silas finally relented.

"Fine, go. But you're not going near the crime scene, just to the morgue where it's safe and no bodies can hurt you."

"I know, thank you, dear," Lexi said and she pecked Silas' cheek before going to the kitchens.

The next day they were leaving Alfie's larger car that could hold up to 6 people and it only took a short drive but Will was coming and he was using his prosthetic and had his medical bag, and they had various bit of equipment that they brought along just in case anything were to happen.

Alfie pulled up two streets away from the intended location after dropping off Lexi, Will and Henry at the front of the morgue, armed with fake identities and guns hidden in their clothing to safeguard them, Will was wearing the prosthetic that had lots of secret pockets, great for storing blades or small pistols.

Alfie, Silas and Mason got out of the car and made their way to the crime scene, all of them being vigilant about their surroundings. There were children playing outside of a house, the elderly taking walks and the majority of men at work while the woman stayed at home looking after the houses and children.

By the time they arrived they area where the crime had happened was cleared up to be a regular street again, making it incredibly difficult for them to gather any information on the murder. The trio were annoyed at the police's competency, that they got rid of what might have been evidence or clues that might lead them to the murder. It might have also not been a murder, it could have been an accident but without the crime scene left as it was, they didn't have a good chance at finding anything.

Back at the morgue Lexi had showed the person at the front desk their badges and fake documents allowing them access to the body and one the staff lead them down some corridors before opening a door letting the three of them in. The man lifted the sheet to show the face of the victim, the three cringed away a little when seeing the state of his neck.

"No so sure why you're interested in this one. Came in two days ago and seems like a normal kill. John Smith, here, he didn't have anything to show who he is so probably means he got on the wrong side of a fight or something," the man said.

"Yes, thank you for your input," Henry said, impatiently, not trusting anyone but the people he lived with.

"Murder should never be 'normal'," Lexi chimed in.

"I will leave you to it then," the man turned his nose and almost stomped out the door.

Will rolled his eyes. He picked up one of the metal tools on the side and pushed it around in the deceased man's neck.

Henry looked on warily and slightly green before turning his head away, "You know, I've dealt with some crap in my time by this is just gross."

Lexi patted his arm and turned her back on the body to join Henry in looking away, leaving Will to do his job. Lexi and Henry heard squishing sounds and other noises which made them move a few steps further from the table the victim was on. Will continued for a while longer before announcing he was finished with the corpse.

"Oh, thank God you are finally done," Henry said relieved. Will pulled the white sheet over the victim's head and shoulders once more and leaned away from the table.

Lexi looped her arm though Will's and they walked out of the door with Henry in front of them, for risk assessment obviously. Lexi and Henry flashed smiles at the guys at the desk before leaving while Will looked grumpy and limped hazardously with Lexi still at his side walking along with him. By the time they had reached outside of the building they saw Silas, Mason and Alfie casually leaning against the hood of the car. Silas pushed off the car and smiled, going to Lexi who helped Will to the door of the car.

"Get anything?" Silas asked.

She laughed lightly and said, "You should ask Will. He knows everything, Henry and I couldn't bare to watch. Urgh."

Silas chuckled and they got into the car with the other four for the ride home. On the drive Will gave his report of the John Smith's cause of death.

"It looked like his throat was torn apart and I'm sure all of you know by what. Anyway, I could barely find any teeth or fang marks but they were there. The men working at the morgue didn't even try to clean off the dried blood so I had to do it just to get a clearer examination. I also noticed that most of his blood had been drained, leaving just about a pint in him," Will said, slowly going through each point with the 5 other people in the small space of the car. Although Lexi was there for the job she was still surprised with the information that Will gave sombrely.

"What about the markings the police reported?" Silas asked. Will shook his head and said, "No, it was just those idiots' mistake. There wasn't any markings on his body, just the torn neck."

"Okay but you think it might have been a vampire?" Henry asked, he didn't think Will was lying but he just wanted to confirm it.

"Yeah, as far as I could tell."

"So now we've got a crazy rabid vampire on the loose. Great," Henry said.

"Don't be like that, if we don't do it then lots of people will be hurt," Lexi chidded.

"I know, I know. Just would appreciate it if we had a few days off every now and then when we can all be peaceful and quiet without having to chase after some maniac or serial killer," Henry said.

"Yup, agree to that," Alfie said in the driver's seat nodding.

They quickly arrived home again and the house was mainly empty, with everyone at work or out doing other tasks for The Cloaked Red. However, soon enough people started coming home and when the whole household was present Will and Alfie repeated their findings to everyone else. Tony was also annoyed about the new player in town, taking more lives of the innocent, but half way through the talk the telephone in the training room started to ring. Will and Alfie abruptly stopped their explanation and looked to Silas.

"You expecting anything?" Alfie asked. Silas shook his head but went over to the telephone anyway.

"Hello, who is this?" Silas asked cautiously.

"Hi, is this Rosso residence?" the man asked.

Silas looked to Lexi and mouthed 'Rosso' and she nodded in confirmation, "Yes, that's us," Silas replied.

"Good, well a woman and her two male friends came in earlier and left a number to call if we identified the body they were examining. Turns out the guy is Xavier Sommers, had been sentenced to life in prison for murdering women he picked up from the streets, now dead. Probably best for the city," the man on the other side of the telephone said.

"Thank you for calling us, have a nice day," Silas said automatically and then hung up on him. He relayed the information to the rest of the people in the room.

"Wait, so the vampire who killed Sommers was doing everyone a favour?" Tony asked incredulous

Most of them looked uncomfortable, and Jenny said, "Uh, looks like it and now we've got a vampire doing our job but without the restraint we have over not killing everyone we come across." At this Jenny gave a pointed look at Silas, remembering a few weeks ago when Silas shot the man in the head after infiltrating the warehouse. Silas rolled his eyes at her.

"But killing Sommers might have been just a coincidence and he really is just another crazed vampire," Mallory said, being vigilant.

"You're right, which is why you and someone else," Mallory groaned, "are going to look through past cases and deaths that are similar to Sommer's and see if you can find a pattern. If this vampire is really murdering for fun then we have to take him out but if it's to keep innocent people safe and away from the dangerous ones then we can try to persuade them to try to bring justice instead of death," Silas said, going over some of the possibilities.

Mallory had her shoulder slumped and pushed through the people towards the doors trudging her way, dragging Yelena by the sleeve of her jumper. Yelena smiled brightly at everyone, giving a small wave. "See ya," she called.

"I shudder to think about what they're going to be doing," Jenny commented. Tony let out a bark of laughter.

Lexi dimpled and said, "All right kids, settle down. We've still got to deal with other problems."

A week later they finally had a lead. Not much of one but it fitted the profile of the vampire they had been looking for.

"Mal, I think I've got something. Says here that a man was killed, Victor Strong, he was found abusing women and children but get this, he was found dead on the street with a torn out throat and over half of his blood missing," Yelena began, "but that was over 60 years ago, and the man that murdered Strong was caught a few months later. And guess what? The man they caught went missing 2 years after being locked up and during that time the suicide rates in that specific prison increased by 30%."

"So if he is the vamp we've been looking for then it would explain how he is still around 60 years later, committing almost the same killing. Or it could be a very good copy cat," Mallory was running through ideas and one of the strongest possibilities was that the whole thing was a person who found out about the case and decided it would be a good idea to copy him for a cover story.

"We have to tell Silas and the others what we've found," Yelena said gathering up the respective papers into her arms, there were only a few but the content included evidence that would be relevant.

Mallory quickly put the files and documents back into the boxes and hurried after Yelena who was half way down the hall already. Yelena checked the rooms as she rushed passed and soon found Silas and Lexi having dinner at the kitchen table, she swung open the large door with Mallory right behind her, worried about her condition. Getting kidnapped by the lunatic that made Lexi ill made Mallory anxious about Yelena, getting kidnapped or harmed by anyone really. Which was a small problem seeing as The Cloaked Red's agenda was primarily hunting and catching criminals but now there was even more danger with the newly introduced vampires.

"Hey, how's the work going?" Lexi asked, munching on some carrots.

Yelena was half panting, out of breath from finding the couple, "We've got something. The vampire we are after might have a pattern. It looks like he committed a murder like Sommers' about 60 years ago but he was caught and imprisoned. Then he escaped and if he is a vampire it would explain the long lifetime because a man at his age if he got out of prison he would be almost 80 year old, too old to have enough strength to murder again."

Lexi and Silas at there taking in what she said and Mallory elbowed Yelena in the arm slightly, "Oh and Mallory thinks that our killer might be a copycat, a man or vampire we don't know." Yelena rolled her eyes.

"Ah, well," Silas was looking intrigued and wary of the news given to him, "Now that we know we might be on the right track about a vampire being the killer, we need a plan to find him. Wait, did he have a name?"

"Well.. Yeah, but the only name he left for the court was 'Oberon Balthasar'. Not that any of them dimwits got that reference but I suspect he probably leaves fake names and aliases a lot, so that the authorities can't find him. With some fake hair and some clever disguise the police think he is a completely different person," Yelena said, she was glad they had something on him but that didn't make searching for him any easier.

Mallory and Yelena were sat down at this point and Lexi rose to get the other women a potion of food but as she pushed off the table with one hand, she swayed faintly. Silas' arm shot out at her waist to steady her, he got up from the chair and put his other hand on her shoulder. Mallory and Yelena had worried expressions on their faces.

"Lexi?" Silas asked. She had a slightly dazed look and she shook her head.

"No, I'm fine. Simply stood up too fast," she said reassuring him. He didn't believe her but he let it pass as they had an audience, Mallory and Yelena seemed to be concerned as well but kept quiet, they finished up and left so that Lexi and Silas could have some private time without anyone intruding.

They left for their room, tired and still pondering vaguely about the day's revelations and what would then happen.

In the kitchen, Silas was helping clear away the dishes as Lexi sat at the table with her hand to her head.

"Are you sure you are all right?" Silas asked for the billionth time.

"Yes, dear. It is only a small headache, I can manage," she said, Silas still not believing her, but he put a warm mug of her favourite tea in front of her on the hard wooden table. She gave him a grateful smile and took a sip, "Thank you."

The rest of the night was uneventful, they went to bed, slept.

And woke up to another murder by their vampire killer.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Nate woke up with a throbbing pain in his head. He cringed as he opened his eyes to the bright lighting shined in his direction and soon realised he was restrained to a wooden chair.

And wooden. Really? The pathetic attempt at a take over was amusing honestly, for Nate anyway.

He checked his surroundings and found that they were still in the warehouse but he and Francis, who was also tied up and next to him had been moved to the centre of the building. Nate would be furious if he found out that Francis was hurt permanently with anything because he was fond of him and Francis was one of his most trusted people, a person that was edging on friendship, which was rare with Nate so if he lost Francis, all hell would break loose and the wrath of Nathaniel Alianov and they would pay. Not that they wouldn't for the attempt at a kidnapping, extremely poor if you asked Nate.

Nate would play along for a while, just to find out their plans and then break the bloody ties that would not hold him back. The grunts had a timer, and hour and then show up, guns blazing.

"Ah, you are awake, Mr. Nate," the more irritating man sneered, Nate decided to call him Loser 1.

Nate flashed a charismatic and charming grin.

Loser 1 kept on making a displeasing face to look at while another man, Loser 2, wheeled in a metal trolley showered with a range of, what his kidnappers thought, terrifying appliances suitable for the fantastic activity of torture.

Loser 1 picked up a sharp looking blade and lifted it up to shine in the light. Nate rolled his eyes and said, "Really? What are you going to do with that?"

Loser 2 glared at him and growled through his bared teeth. Loser two was annoyed, "You will answer our questions or we will hurt you." He tried to appear harsh and cruel but ended up looking in pain.

"You can try, but it's not going to do very much," Nate was saying as Loser 1 stepped closer and drew a long line down the length of Nate's right arm.

"How do you like that, boy?" Loser 1 asked smug.

But he then as he glanced back to the laceration he saw that it wasn't there anymore, it was replaced with a strip of bloodied but stitched up skin with no markings on to suggest that the man he had just cut into was hurt.

Nate gave a sadistic grin, seeing Loser 1 staring at his arm. "That was fun but now you've got to pay for doing that and hurting my friend here."

Nate, in a rapid movement, crushed the chair and stood up in a fury. He glowered at the men fiercely and in his hand was a broken half of a chair leg, he lifted it and threw the piece of wood. It landed in Loser 1's right shoulder. He shot back with a loud cry of pain. Loser 2 growled again and made a move towards Nate, he only took a step before he was stabbed in the thigh with a blunt pair of pliers, quicker than possible for Nate to have made it there. Loser 2 stumbled over and hit the ground with a heavy thud, Nate smiled casually and then got creative. He first sliced the ropes on Francis and then turned back to the men on the floor.

"Hmm, this is going to be fun."

Nate approached the men who were still withering on the floor and held a blunt blade and brought it down onto Loser 2's collarbone. There, Nate climbed over him, pushing into the wood already in his thigh making him whimper, and began to carve his initials. NR. Jaggedly and deeply he made the letters clear, even with the blood trickling along his arm and forming a puddle at the side.

Behind them Loser 1 was coming to terms with the pain in his shoulder and had pulled the wood out, a mistake by Nate's standards, but who was he to question the stupidity of them after the kidnapping attempt. Loser 1 forced back a shout coming to the back of his throat and made himself sit up and then stand up. He spotted a metal pole which he picked up with his good hand and fought a groan, he took two steps towards the man who was hurting his friend and lifted the pole to strike down, aiming for the man's head. Before he could his target grabbed the other end of the pole and swiveled his head around to look at him. Loser 1 swallowed and had a look of fear in his eyes.

"You think I don't know what you were trying to do?" Nate looked exasperated, "I'm trying to work here, can't you respect that and let me get on with it? I'm creating a masterpiece and you just had to get in the way of that. Don't worry, you'll get your turn when I'm done with this scum."

Loser 1 was truly living up to his title and made a start to the exit. He wasn't about to risk his life for his friend, he wanted to live. not that Nate was going to let him go, so he picked up a sharper knife and threw it with unbelievable speeds across the space Loser 1 had just made. It pierced a spot right below his lungs, on the right of his back, injuring him further. He gasped loudly and dropped onto his knees, effectively stopping him from leaving anytime soon, the only downside was that Nate would get less playtime with Loser 1 than he would like. He could end Loser 2 quickly and then move onto Loser 1 but he didn't want to do that as it would give him less time to play. So he opted for the other choice. he got up off Loser 2 and walked to Loser 1 who was lying on his front.

Nate forgot to grab another tool before going to Loser 1, but he shrugged and said, "Oh well. This will have to do."

He glanced down to the wounds he had inflicted with the wood and then the knife and smiled, the knife work was pretty good if he had to say so himself, very on target. Oh, the puns.

"I don't think I want you bleeding out too fast," Nate said disapprovingly. So he raised his boot and pressed it onto his back, right on the spot of the fatal knife wound. Loser 1 gave a panicked shriek and whimpered.

"D'aww," he leaned on it a little harder and Loser 1 gave another shout, "You're just getting annoying now, too bad I had plans for you, well, for the near, near-future."

Nate crudely rolled Loser 1 on his back and knelt down. He slid the blunt knife across his throat, once to make the cut and then twice to make the cut deeper and more painful. Loser 1 made gurgling sounds as he choked to death on his own blood.

"Well, that was eventful."

Francis was beginning to wake as Nate walked closer.

"Sir? What happened?" Francis asked.

"It's okay, Francis, I've dealt with them, no need to worry," Nate said. He checked on Loser 2 and Francis shook off his ropes, stood up and stretched. He scanned the room to find Loser 1 dead about 15 feet away and another man on the floor before him. His boss was checking on that man, who was barely breathing and his boss announced, "Damn. He's going into shock. Whoops." Francis wasn't too bothered but the state of the men, one, they had knocked them out and tied them up and two, they probably suggesting torturing Nate which was always a bad idea. So he didn't mind what Nate did to the men.

"So, Loser 1," Nate pointed to the man lying away from them, "is dead. Not sorry. And Loser 2," he pointed to the man at their feet, "is in the process of dying but I'm not going to do anything about it, not too bothered and a slow death suits him as I just gave Loser 1 a quick one, not very like me but he was irritating."

Francis nodded in acknowledgement and said, "Yes, sir. Uh, can we leave now, sir?"

"Sure, I think that the grunts will be here soon enough," Nate replied. he looked around for a moment and then spotted what he was searching for and took them off the men and the bottom of the trolley. He handed two of the guns to Francis and kept the other four on his own body.

"Be ready for the guards outside, they probably thought the sounds of torture were coming from us and that we are dead by now, so we have the element of surprise. Aim for a kill shot," Nate explained to Francis.

The reached the back exit and Nate mouthed a short countdown before swinging open the door and shooting the two men stationed there straight through their heads. Nate and Francis split up and patrolled the perimeter of the warehouse, taking out anyone at those posts. Quickly and efficiently they eliminated the guards.

Afterwards they waited at the back pull up where the grunts would be meeting them. Nate was lying down on his back on the deep green grass and Francis was sat beside him, pistol in hand.

"Doesn't that cloud look like a rabbit with a bowler hat?" Nate said, pointing to the left of the sky.

"I think it looks more like a deer hugging a moose, sir," Francis said.

"No way, it can't be, the moose is all wrong if it was that, I say it's a rabbit with a bowler hat," Nate disagreed. This guessing-the-cloud-shape went on for another ten minutes and the grunts when arrived.

They pulled up sideways and threw open the car doors for Nate and Francis to get in.

"Took you long enough," Nate scolded.

"Sorry, boss. Won't happen again, boss," Baxter replied

"I'm sure it won't. Anything happen back at The Garage?" Nate was curious.

"No, sir. It has been normal and quiet."

"Good to hear," Nate said. He then told the rest of the grunts what went down in the warehouse, he missed out the bits where he was making the men scream but told them everything, to the part about the clouds. "So, any of you have a water bottle?"

Baxter reached back and picked one up and handed it to Nate who downed the entire thing in less than a minute. "Torturing people is hard but fun work."

The drive for a while before ending up at the drive way of The Garage, the grunt driving stopped at the front to let Nate, Francis and the others out before parking in the garage. Nate unlocked the door and walked though leaving it open. He went straight to the living room and he found Aimee and Jonathan laughing, the couple looked up at their newcomer and began to giggle even more. Nate smiled and he was glad that they were still happily together but felt like something was missing for some reason.

"You look a bit battered up, where did you lot go?" Aimee asked, leaned back on the sofa.

"Kidnapped."

"What? Are you okay? What happened?" Aimee asked worried now, they ceased their giggling.

"Francis and I are fine, just tired. There was a small hiccup," Nate said, realising how exhausted he was.

Aimee and Jonathan didn't look convinced and Jonathan said, "Right. But go tell Andy you're back and about the kidnapping thing, she is in her room. ."

Nate was slightly confused at the request but he said his 'goodbye' to them both and followed up. He left the room and walked down the rest of the corridor to to up a flight of stairs and down another corridor for Andy's room. He knocked and patiently waited.

He wasn't even changed or showered but he was at Andy's door, he didn't really know why.

Andy called for the person at the door to entre and was pleasantly surprised to see Nate.

"Nathaniel, come in, have a seat," Andy said gesturing to the other end of her bed. She was seated leaning against the headboard. Nate climbed on, sitting crossed legged opposite her.

"So. What the hell happened to you?" she demanded, scanning his clothes and general appearance.

"Got kidnapped," he said like it was the most normal thing to happen to him in the world. In some ways in was, in his 'line of work' it was more than likely something would happen to him, like a kidnapping every now and then or an arson attack to one of his properties.

"Christ, are you all right?" If she wasn't worried about him before then she definitely was now. She waved her hands about trying to think of a way help him, he swatted them away and gave her a look.

"I'm fine. Francis is fine. You have nothing to fear, and when have you ever known me to not be able to get out of any situation? I can overpower a few idiots on my own. Francis there was just a small help," he wasn't at all bothered. he had to survive somehow through all the years

She seeme a little more relieved with the news and said, "Excuse me for being concerned, thought you might appreciate it." She made and noise, folded her arms and turned her head to the side.

"Aww, of course I appreciate your concern but now I have to change out of my ruined clothes," he said in apology, then he proceeded to stand up off the bed and pull off his ruined shirt, dropping it on the floor. He stood there for a moment as she was silent and staring and then he said, "Well, I'm going to take my leave now."

Andy was still staring, mouth dry as he was leaving. She quickly realised that after he had gone that he had left his shirt on the floor of her bedroom.

Nate grinned smugly walking down the corridor. He bumped into Francis on the way to his room, but he didn't think much of it.

"Hi, sir. Why are you shirtless, sir?" Francis asked bemused.

"Andy's a menace, Francis. I'm dealing," Nate said smirking happily.

"Very good, sir," Francis said, he strolled away, avoiding the mess his boss was bound to create.

Nate then called out, "See you later, buddy." Francis shook his head and kept walking until he was out of Nate's line of sight.

Nate was still in a good mood as he got out of the dirty clothes and grabbed towels to lay out in the bathroom rack. He took a long shower, mulling over the mundane things in life and the bright future he would have.

He stepped out and wrapped a larger dark blue towel around his hips and took another to scrub over his hair. He hung it back on the rack and he then opened the bathroom door and walked across the width of the corridor.

But he was stopped by Andy, standing about three feet away, dirty shirt in hand and speechless.

"I- erm. I'm, uh, here to, err," Andy was trying to force out her words but her mouth wasn't listening the screaming noises that her brain was making for Andy to talk and act normal. "I'm here to give you your, er, shirt." She finally said.

Nate was now facing her, nothing hiding his chest that only had a only a sheen of shower water on and the towel barely hanging onto his hips. He was smiling, but not full on grin, that would reveal that he absolutely knew what effect he had on her and he didn't want to do that, playing innocent was all too much fun.

"Ah, Andy, thank you for the shirt," he blatantly lied and took it from her still hand, "Anything else I can do for you, love."

Andy had now come to her senses after about three full minutes and narrowed her eyes. She had an idea and answered, "Sure."

She walked straight passed him and twisted the doorknob to his bedroom and went inside. Operation Revenge was at the ready and raring to go.

She threw herself onto the centre of the bed and put her hands behind her head. "I'm expecting a show, you know. And your room is surprisingly clean."

Nate was still at the door frame, "You expecting clothes on the floor, plates lying around? We haven't been here long and I'm not messy. Also, not happening, love." On hand holding onto the side of the towel and the other at his side he went to his closet and closed the door.

"So, why are you here?" he asked pulling on a pair of slacks.

Andy glanced to the ceiling as she replied, "Admiring the view, well, what would have been a really great view if it weren't for that blasted door in the way."

"Let's get it open then," Nate said pulling open the door, giving Andy a full view of the medium sized closet. Nate was standing in only in his trousers. Andy watched on as Nate turned around and reached for a button down shirt and slipped it on.

Nate just said, "Shuffle up," in which she complied and he crawled on next to her. He mirrored her position lying on top of the covers of the bed. "What's so interesting about the ceiling then?"

Andy gave up staring and turned her head to face him. He was less than a feet away on the ridiculously large bed and she gave a half shrug.

"Nice bed," she said, deflecting. "Very comfy."

"I know, one of the reasons I love it so much," he rose an eyebrow suggestively.

"Mmm hmm," she faced the ceiling again and then closed her eyes, "You know, this bed is actually proving to be a little too comfy..." She mumbled out the last part, she was getting tired. Almost unintelligible for the regular person but not for Nate, because his incredible senses included that of being able to hear things he shouldn't picked upon.

Nate was looking at her as she began to fall asleep. He decided to let her sleep there, he wasn't willing to wake her and be on her bad side, it wasn't worth the risk, but also falling asleep next to her though.. That wouldn't be something she would complain against, much.

A few hour later Andy woke up to a heavy weight on her hip and a startling warmth encased around her.. She breathed in for a second and found that there was a musky scent in the air. She peaked open her right eye to see that she wasn't in her own bed, but a larger and more luxurious one than hers.

She gave a choked gasp which she ceased immediately after hearing Nate (why did it have to be Nate?) shift.

This was not her plan. Her plan was to go to his room and intimidate him and to settle on the bed to make him uncomfortable, not to bloody fall asleep. Only this would happen to her. And why didn't he move after figuring out she was sleeping, like to the armchair on the other side of the room or to go down stairs. Not to stay on the bed, his bed, and fall asleep right next to her. Why did he do that? Lazy arse.

She closed her eyes again and waited for a moment before trying to get out of the bed. She reached her hand to his arm still over her hip and pinched around his wrist and lifted it off her and onto his side. He breathed out heavily and she froze at his movements, only daring to blink.

'You can do this, Andy.' She said to herself in her mind, shouting the words.

"Andy?"

She groaned and snapped. "Yes. What?"

"Whoa, you're the one that came here, love," his voice was still groggy from sleep giving it a deeper and throatier tinge to it.

"Sorry, Nate. But if you could remove yourself from my personal space, that'd be great, thanks," she said, waving her free hand over the fact that the were still too close for comfort.

"I could," he said and he leaned in closer and pulled her towards him, "but this is nice, don't you think?"

"Erm, No. Now move," she said, no further comments were to be allowed. He stayed for another moment before finally rolling over onto his back.

She slid off the bed, stretched like a cat and then made her way to the door.

"You're coming back soon, love," Nate said, copying their earlier positions, hands behind head and legs extended on the bed, he watched as she tried to leave as soon as she could, he supposed it was rather awkward but he found it endearing and funny, the whole situation that they both started. Definitely mutually.

"No, I'm not," Andy said and rounded the corner before he could make any remarks.

She walked off to her room, both annoyed and amused at the same time. She wanted to strangle him but she also wanted to give him a medal for his scheming.

Nate was happy and content, he was in a brilliant mood. He hopped off bed and went to the living room. Jonathan and Aimee had left the room at this point and they were probably in their room asleep. He and Andy had slept from early evening until about very early morning, around 1 am, meaning the majority of the household were fast asleep. So, nate would have to be quiet, otherwise he would wake all the kids, even Nate with all his strength and power couldn't take on the wrath of the kids, after all their training from the trainers and even the grunts.

But there was one person that he could bother that was awake.

He left the armchair he was sitting in and swiped a large cookie on the plate on the table and went to wander around until he would find Andy. He opened a few doors to rooms and found a few people sleeping in funny positions, in Craig's room he found him on the floor with small blanket draped over him, still healing from the explosion in The Boat House. He then made his way to the kitchen where he found Andy with a large slice of cake.

"What you doing here in the dead of the night, love?" Nate strolled in casually and leaned on the counter with an elbow.

She swallowed the bite in her mouth and quickly replied, "Eating, obviously. Why are you here, to torment me?"

"Yup." He sat down on the stool in front of him and put his chin in his hands and stared at her intently.

After a minute Andy spoke up. "That's creepy, Natalie. Look somewhere else," she said eating more cake and appearing to be slightly disturbed by the fact that Nate hadn't blinked since he sat down. "Here, have the rest of this cake." She pushed the plate with half of the cake to him and put down the fork.

If it was anyone else that had called him 'Natalie' or any variation of that name he would have beaten them senseless but he didn't want to here.

"Ew. I'm not using your fork. It's got Andy stuff all over it," he said making a face.

"Yeah, well. You look like the back side of Doctor Frankenstein's creation. Ha." She made a face back at him as he went around Andy to pull open a draw to retrieve another fork. He lightly poked her in the shoulder, a bit miffed.

"I didn't know you knew Shelly," he said.

"I didn't know you knew Shelly," she said in return, "I'm super clever."

"No, I'm smarter," he complained with a mouthful of chocolate cake.

She cringed away from him as he talked, it was disgusting. He then poured himself a glass of water to wash away the taste of strong chocolate, as he drank there was a knocking from the front door.

Nate looked to Andy, both now completely serious.

"You expecting anyone?" Andy whispered.

Nate put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He reached under the dining table behind them and drew out side arm and held it before him, he gestured for Andy to do the same. Nate slowly approached the door, they silently walked on the balls of their feet, he was leading front of her and she was at the back. They got to the door and he motioned for her to stand by the wall as he looked through the hole in the door.

A figure waved back, a wine bottle in hand. Nate's tense shoulders relaxed and he tucked his gun into the back of his trousers.

He sighed and went to open the door, Andy gave him a confused look. Nate ignored it and proceeded to undo the many locks and bolts on the reinforced door. It soon opened to reveal a man in a with a cheery smile and bottles of wine in each hand.

"Brother! How are you doing?" he exclaimed loudly, throwing open his arms and pulling Nate into a tight embrace.

Nate groaned inwardly and said, "Quiet. There are people asleep in this household."

"Brother?" Andy asked, surprised and wary of the man before them.

"Yes, this is my older brother," Nate said reluctantly.

"I've never heard of any 'brother'. Or family for that matter," Andy replied, still not really comprehending the word.

Nate's brother looked a bit put out, "No mention of me? Your favourite sibling, the oldest?"

"You may be the eldest," Nate said, "And deafest," he mumbled. "But not by favourite, Ophelia, our sister holds my affections, by far the more tolerable one."

The man scoffed and turned to Andy, "Now, who is this pretty dame? You've been rude, Sir Nathaniel, not introducing her." He slipped his hand in hers, the one that wasn't holding a firearm, before she could pull away and pulled it to him, pressing a kiss on the back of her hand.

"Cut it out, people don't do that anymore. You haven't adapted very much have you? You've been noisy. I've been hearing about the kills you've done, clearly your methods never change," Nat said, beginning to get irritated with his brother's presence.

Nate's brother completely blanked Nate and was still staring at Andy as she pulled away her hand back to her side.

"You can call me Pembroke, or Oberon Balthasar, as I am more well-known as," Pembroke said to Andy who rapidly realised something.

She gasped and made the connection as she had weeks before with the knowledge of vampires already existing for her, "It was you! You're the one going around London murdering those people."

Pembroke smirked and bowed, he put on a perfect American accent, "At your service, ma'am."

Nate swatted his shoulder, "Stop flirting with Andy and tell me why you're here, in fact, how did you find this place anyway?" he demanded. "She's never going to want you," Nate added.

"I am not the only member of the family with recognisable patterns, you have distinctive marks, Nathaniel," Pembroke said amused.

Nate rolled his eyes and picked up the bottles of wine his brother had put down on the floor and walked back to the kitchen, Andy immediately followed and Pembroke strolled after them, somewhat curious.

It was close to 4 am at this point and people would be waking up in about 2 hours and if everything went according to plan then Pembroke would be gone by then. But then Nate remembered that it was his brother he was going on about, nothing ever happened the way he wanted when his brother was involved.

Nate put the wine of the counter and opened a draw with the wine opener in and pulled out a few wine glasses from the high cupboard.

Andy slid onto the stool Nate was previously on and put the gun she was holding in front of her, on the counter, so she could quickly reach for it if needed. She still didn't trust Pembroke, even if he was Nate's brother. Pembroke himself leaned on the side of the table and folded his arms, in a similar way Nate usually did. She couldn't deny the resemblance there and their good looks.

Nate uncorked the 1940 Barbaresco and left the 1850 Château Bel Air Marquis d'Aligre for a later date. He filled up to a quarter of wine glass and pushed the first to Andy, the second towards his brother and poured a larger one for himself.

"What are you doing here, brother?" Nate asked taking a sip of the wine.

"What do you mean? I'm here to see how my little brother is doing, I heard about the attack," Pembroke said, putting on a concerned facade.

"Oh, please. You're never worried about me, you haven't visited me since 1902. You know I can handle my life without problems, at least not like yours," Nate said, not trusting him, he didn't have much of a reason to. Andy knew about the whole 'vampire and immortal' situation and wasn't opinionated about it.

Andy was sitting there sipping her wine and watching the show.

"Fine. You've visited, now you are leaving," Nate said.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No I'm not."

Nate groaned, "You can stay but you're not interfering with the kids. Don't ask who they are. I know you know who they are."

Pembroke rolled his eyes.

"I'll take you to your room," Nate drained the rest of the glass and quickly set off, after taking a strong grip of the collar of his brother's jacket.

"Whoa, I'm coming," Pembroke said. Nate let go and Pembroke followed obediently for once with Andy behind, wine glass still in hand.

Andy jogged forward passed Pembroke in the corridor and slowed beside Nate. She nudged him with her elbow and they walked silently to one of the guest rooms. They got there a minute later and Nate open the door to show a medium sized room, with a medium sized bed and a medium sized wardrobe.

"Well, this is certainly cozy," Pembroke said. He didn't have any luggage on him so he asked Nate, "Brother, I don't suppose you have a few changes of clothing to spare?"

"Yes, fine. They'll be in your room in a couple of hours. I suggest you sleep while you can and before the kids wake," Nate said before turning to go back to his room, tired from the events but his brother stopped him before he could leave.

"Nathaniel, who are these 'kids' you keep mentioning? I don't suppose I have nieces and nephews?" Pembroke asked, genuinely curious.

Nate quickly spoke, "No you don't, they are my recruits and you'll find out soon enough." He took Andy by the arm and closed the door, leaving Pembroke to himself.

"That was something," Andy started as they went back to the other side of the floor, where their rooms were.

"He's a bit much, you can see why I've avoided him for so long," Nate replied. they were now on their way to Andy's.

They got there but she didn't go in. He raised an eyebrow and she said, "Nope, I'm coming with you." He just shrugged and lead the way.

They walked along the other hallway and got to his room, they entered and Andy asked, "Can I borrow a shirt?"

"It's like I'm a clothes shop today, do I look like a clothes shop?" He moved to the drawers anyway and pulled out grey shirt, slightly too big for her.

"No, you don't," she smiled. She took off her jacket and placed it on the chair by the desk, she walked to the closet and shut the door.

"Don't go snooping," he said. She changed and grabbed a pair of Nate's old worn out trousers that felt comfortable, she put it on and opened the door to see Nate lying under the covers, eyes closed.

"Some of the stuff in there, Nate. How on earth did you come across them?" she asked climbing onto the other side.

He turned to lie on his left side and faced his eyes still closed. "Thought I told you not to snoop," he murmured.

"I don't listen very well," she was lying on her right side facing him, eyes open.

He was asleep breathing evenly as she looked at him but she also fell asleep soon after.

Hours later they woke up to shouts from downstairs and to find themselves in a similar situation as the last time they were sleeping Nate's room, but only sleeping as they were tired and exhausted from the early morning hours that were spent on handling Pembroke.

Nate groaned and rolled out of bed, he trudged to his closet and drowsily pulled on the bare minimums of clothing and took the pair of trousers that weren't his and threw them in Andy's direction. He brushed his teeth and when he came back he found Andy still sleeping, as little as he wanted to wake her he had to.

"Andy, come on. We've got to get ready," Nate said. Andy whined and pulled the covers over her head, ignoring the trousers on the bed. Nate walked around the bed and removed the covers from her top half, but she just used her arms to shield her face from the light coming from the windows and gave another mewl. "Andy, get up. You can keep the shirt if you get out of bed, we have to deal with what's downstairs, but I think the kids have probably just found out about Pembroke."

She made a noise at hearing that name but slid out of bed anyway. "If it's only him then why are you taking me with you? And I am going to keep the shirt, I like it." She dragged one of the blankets with her as she finally got out of bed and took the trousers with her as she headed for the bathroom.

"Because it's Pembroke and anything could happen. I'm going downstairs, meet me there," he said still barefoot and only in trousers and a shirt. "We can sleep later when everything's settled."

"Good!" She called out, her mouth occupied with a blob of toothpaste and a toothbrush.

Nate did a double take before saying, "Are you using my toothbrush?"

"Yeah."

"Eww. I need a new one now," he laughed.

"No, you don't," she said more clearly after spitting out and rinsing. Nate left for the bottom floor where he searched for the possible site of incident and came across the kitchen where Pembroke was casually sitting on a stool while a handful of the other kids were in fighting positions, which Nate was impressed with, they were in strategic spots and had good stances, while the trainers and a few of the grunts had guns pointed at him, but none of that seemed to affect his brother who had a bowl of cereal and was simply eating it.

Meanwhile Andy was pulling on her regular trousers and a pair of thick woolen socks she found in Nate's drawers in the closet that she was sure he wouldn't miss for a day or two. She put her hair up in a clean bun and picked up her jacket that was still on his chair. Swinging it on she walked down the wooden floorboards of the corridor, the woolen socks helping keep the cold out and wandered downstairs.

She arrived at the kitchen and almost walked straight into Nate's back. "Whoa. What's going on here?"

"Just about to explain, Andrea," Nate said. She elbowed him harder than usual this time. "Ouchie."

"Everyone can relax," Nate said with his hands up, he walked slowly towards Pembroke and put them on his brother's shoulders. "This is my older brother, Pembroke. Also the killer going around murdering the baddies, Oberon Balthasar." The kids loosened their stances slightly but the news didn't put the adults to any ease. "I said relax," everyone obeyed this time.

The kids then bursted with questions, to both Nate and Pembroke.

"Since when did you have a brother?"

"If he really is your brother, why is he here?" (Nate was still wandering about that a well.)

"Did all the nice wine come from you? (To Pembroke)" (Nate gave a sharp look to the kid who asked that, they were only 18 and he wasn't allowed to drink yet, all least not with Nate's permission.)

"What kind of name is 'Pembroke'?" (Nate laughed loudly at that one and let his brother splutter though that question.)

"Pretty much the same reactions as I had," Andy said to Nate afterwards who nodded, he had expected as much.

Pembroke then came to the pair and said, "I thought there were going to be clothes in my room?"

"I thought you were going to stay in your room," Nate replied, "At least until much later, when the kids were settled and I was awake to introduce you all to each other." Nate rolled his eyes when he saw his brother about to complain, "Just come with us."

Nate and Andy went back to his room where he picked out items that were about Pembroke's size, chucking them into his arms.

"I suppose you know where your room is," Nate said waving him off, "If not you'll find it."

Pembroke nodded and took his leave

Nate vaguely recalled that he hadn't seen Francis since a day ago but he remembered that it was Francis' day off with his kid. He pushed the thought away and turned to Andy.

Andy closed the door and sighed, "Finally. Sleep." Nate chuckled and climbed back onto the bed with her, glad to be getting more rest.

They curled up peacefully next to each other and fell right back asleep without bothering to change out of the clothing they were in.

Almost half a day later they awoke again to a much more quiet house. They got up together and got ready for what was left of the day.

"Should we go to the hall?" Andy asked. She was wearing comfortable clothes that she could move in, she had made a quick trip to her own room to change, keeping Nate's shirt he gave her in her room, and went back to Nate's room to meet up with him.

Nate was wearing a similar outfit and was putting on a jacket, "Yeah, let's go get something to eat first."

Andy nodded and Nate held the door open for her. They walked to the kitchen where they found Aimee and Jonathan just finishing up at the side table.

"Ah, so the mysterious pair finally tun up. Where have you two been all day?" Aimee asked. Nate busied himself with taking out two plates and putting the appropriate portions on for him and Andy who was answering Aimee's question.

"Sleeping," was her one worded reply. Which was a minor mistake to be honest.

Aimee and Jonathan had slightly shocked looks on their faces as Jonathan said, "Whoa, really?"

"No, not like that. Literally just sleeping, too tired and going to sleep, sleeping," Nate said for Andy as she spluttered but then agreed.

"Yup, just falling asleep."

Aimee and Jonathan looked a tad disappointed, "Just sleeping then, no funny business?"

"No funny business," Nate repeated.

"Shame, but are you two together or what?" Aimee asked and Andy slapped her shoulder lightly.

Nate shrugged. "I don't know, are we?" he directed the last part to Andy. She also shrugged and Nate said, "We haven't done anything but sleep."

The four of them dropped the subject and the girls chatted about things and Nate and Andy ate. An hour later and the end of the bottle of 1940 Barbaresco shared between them, Nate cleared away the plates and they left for the very same hall Aimee and Jonathan had sparred in earlier, to settle their differences.

Andy and Nate walked in front and Aimee and Jonathan followed behind, deciding to come with them. As they entered they took off their outer jackets and laid them on the benches at the side. Andy and Nate went to the right side of the room where there was a set of mats out. Jonathan and Aimee went to the boxing ring on the left side of the room. The Garage had a few halls and most of them were designated with different activities, this hall was mainly for physical fights, fist to fist types.

They were on the mats, standing casually and they set some rules, "Okay, how do you want to do this? Obviously there will be no super strength for super anything, but how dirty are we going to get, hair pulling? Biting? Crotch areas?"

Nate gave her a look that said 'what the hell kind of sparring do you usually take part in?' and said, "No, hair, no biting, no permanent damage to be taken, and crotch, yes." Smirking at the last bit.

Nate and Andy now stood opposite each other, they were both smiling and the both gave each other a mocking bow before taking a few steps back. They stood is fighting positions before Nate gave the first move.

He swiped his foot out aiming for her stomach to knock the air out of her but missed, she pushed his leg away unbalancing him but he didn't fall, instead attempted to grab Andy's ankle which she jumped out of and moved to put Nate on his back, pinning his left arm back painfully. He swung out of her grip and tried to put her in headlock which she quickly flipped and aimed her elbow towards his kneecap. Nate grunted and ignored the pain from the hit but she took advantage of the moment and swung her foot onto his forearm, leaping up and sweeping her legs around his shoulder so that she was practically sitting there for half a second before throwing her weight in one direction forcing Nate to fall forwards. She grinned and his hands came out to help the blow of his fall. Andy ended up in a crouched position, one hand on the mat and she sprung off as soon as Nate regained his balance, but this time he was ready for her move, he let her get high enough but just before she was able to swing him onto the floor for her signature choke hold with her thighs. He gripped the outside of her right thigh and slammed her to the ground, on her back making her groan at the force of it.

It had been playful fighting until now, Nate had Andy pinned on the ground, her hands above her and her legs unable to move as Nate's weight was on her.

He leaned over and whispered in her ear, "I win."

They heard a wolf whistle from the other side of the room. Nate and Andy turned their head to find that Aimee and Jonathan had put a pause their boxing and were now leaning against the edge, their hands still wrapped in the white bandages, watching Nate and Andy's sparring which was much more interesting that their fighting which they could resume another time.

Jonathan swatted Aimee's upper arm, "Way to ruin the moment." They hissed to each other arguing over what should have happened as Nate got up, but then he heard a battle cry and turned his head quickly enough to see Andy pouncing and tackling him to the floor.

"Never take your eyes of the enemy," she whispered in his ear.

He laughed and rolled her over with his extra strength, pinning her down once again. "Never attack a vampire, infant," he said darkly.

"Hmmm." She gave him heavy look and gave an experimental roll of her hips upwards. Ignoring their audience.

Nate jumped off her immediately and coughed. Andy sighed and got up. They were both covered with a sheen of sweat as they walked side by side towards Aimee and Jonathan who were finishing up after not doing very much apart from watch the show.

Aimee was having her hands unwrapped by Jonathan before she rushed forward to where Andy was and asked, "What was all that about?" She was getting nosey.

"I was trying something and Nate didn't want it - me," she muttered into Aimee's ear. The girls were walking in front a few meters away from the boys so they could talk.

However, they didn't take in Nate's sensitive hearing and extra speed, so when he heard Andy's comment to Aimee and took a few strides forward, grabbed Andy's arm and swung her directly right, into the doorway of another hall, this one empty and a place where they could talk.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking back as Aimee and Jonathan had stopped outside the door and were watching them, wanting to know what Nate was up to. Nate closed the door and leaned against it.

"We need to talk."

"God, those bloody words," she said slightly worried. "Talk about what?" She finally asked.

"About us and what's happening, or what shouldn't be happening," he said, completely serious.

"What do you mean 'shouldn't be happening'?" she said, looking annoyed, "You're the one that let me fall asleep in your bed. Twice."

He appeared to be guilty at that. "Yes, I know. And that was a mistake."

She was angry now. "'A mistake'?" she said rather aggressively, glaring at him.

"Yes." He gave a short reply before she gave a low growl and stormed out.

She flung open the door where Aimee and Jonathan were still outside and stomped away at a rapid pace. "A mistake!" Was all she shrieked turning the corner, out of their line of sight.

Aimee turned to Nate who had a sad look on his face. "What the hell did you say to her? She was fine and then you said something to her in the hall and then in there. What did you say?" she looked furious, for Nate hurting her friend, it didn't matter that Nate was the one providing for all of them, that he took them in and could just as easily kick them all out, what mattered at that moment was why her best friend was so upset.

"It doesn't matter. Nothing happened," Nate said. He turned away from them and walked towards the garage.

He arrived, got into his car a reversed out of the garage, into the drive way and through the gates. It was 9 pm at night and he had no idea where he was going. He just knew he had to take a break from all the problems at home.


End file.
